But just because the PlayStation Vita seems attractive, it doesn’t mean that it’ll be a winner. In fact, I’m a firm believer that the Vita will be Sony’s last portable, and the device that could very well put an end to the company’s entire mobile-gaming division.

Believe it or not, that anticipated decline has nothing to do with Sony’s own strategy. The company is doing just what it should — delivering a top-notch portable that serious gamers can enjoy.

However, that serious gamer is changing his or her mind on what they’re looking for in portables. There was a time when only companies like Nintendo or Sony could deliver what they wanted. But with iPhones and Android-based smartphones becoming increasingly popular, and developers creating high-quality games for those platforms, the need for a standalone portable has declined significantly.

It’s also not a good idea on any company’s part nowadays to focus solely on the so-called “hardcore” gamer. The hardcore segment once drove much of the game revenue the industry generated, but it’s now a small portion of the entire market. In order for a console or portable device to become popular, it’ll need the mainstream’s help. And right now, the mainstream has no interest in buying a portable gaming device.

I’m also concerned about the PlayStation Vita’s price. Yes, $250 is the sweet spot in the mobile space right now, but that’s only for devices that do much, much more than Sony’s portable. Worst of all, the most popular smartphone on the market — Apple’s iPhone — comes in at just $199 to start, making just about anyone wonder why they should be spending $50 more to get a device that does less than their smartphone.

Sony also hasn’t made a convincing argument for getting consumers to opt for the PlayStation Vita over the Nintendo 3DS. For years now, Sony has been trying to catch up to Nintendo, and so far, the company hasn’t been able to do so. Remember the mainstream I was talking about? It loves Nintendo. And based on PlayStation Portable sales, it appears it wasn’t as fond of Sony’s device over the years.

At the end of the day, I think the PlayStation Vita will be Sony’s last portable. The company was late to understand the mainstream, its new device can’t compete against smartphones, and eventually its incoming CEO Kaz Hirai will realize that focusing solely on consoles is the way to go.

For major game companies, portable gaming is a toxic market. Microsoft knows it. Nintendo is realizing it. And Sony will soon be a victim to it.

At first glance, obsession is an easy explanation. “Throw a lot at the wall and see which stick” is certainly a workable strategy, if an inelegant and profligate one. You could, though, give Samsung the benefit of the doubt and highlight that it’s merely refreshing an existing product point, bringing a single-core slate running a smartphone iteration of Android up to date with dual-core and Google’s latest tablet-centric build. The existence of the 7.0 Plus does somewhat muddy that argument, however.

Will the scattergun approach to tablets work for Samsung? On the one hand, it’s exactly the strategy the company has taken with smartphones, and it’s been a successful one. Samsung broke the 300m device barrier in phones last year, with a roadmap about as different to, say, Apple’s as you could imagine. Not just two or three generally similar devices targeting entry-, mid- and flagship-range buyers, but almost a different handset for every possible sub-section of the potential audience.

So, if you want a roughly iPhone-scale smartphone, running Android, but cheaper and with a mid-range camera… oh, and you specifically want it in metallic blue, Samsung likely has the model for you. If you tick most of those boxes, but prefer something a little larger than an iPhone, but don’t care too much about photography, there’s a device in Samsung’s range that should satisfy you as well. In short, there’s everything from bargain-basement to Galaxy S II flagship (with the GSIII on the way).

In the end, though, the tablet proposition boils down to price. Tablets aren’t generally sold with a subsidy, unlike cellphones, and that means there’s a minimum tideline that all manufacturers have having to challenge. Some of Samsung’s phones are sold free-on-contract: in contrast, a “bargain” slate is a $199 Kindle Fire or a $249 NOOK Tablet. Apple’s iPad isn’t the target here, beyond an aspirational figurehead: something to make consumers aware of tablets’ existence and fuel a desire for them.

If Samsung can bring the Galaxy Tab 2 in at under $300 – pricing is yet to be officially confirmed, but that looks to be the way the tag is heading based on rumors so far today – with the lure of Ice Cream Sandwich and the content ecosystem the company has created, it could stand a chance. A street price closer to the NOOK Tablet would be even more convincing. That’s also roughly the price of a high-end multifunction remote control; if you’ve got a Samsung Smart TV, you could turn your Galaxy Tab 2 into a universal remote and an extra, streaming screen with the free apps Samsung offers in its download store.

That works today, but whether Samsung – or the market – can sustain what feels like a new tablet every other month remains to be seen. Viewed from outside, it looks like a ridiculous challenge. Arguably, Samsung doesn’t have to convince everyone with every iteration: it only has to persuade those people on the market for the latest tablet at any one time. For now, then, the model works; Samsung just needs to find its breakthrough device sooner rather than later.

Luckily, though, I accessed my favorite shows on my DVR and TiVo. Whenever I had a chance to check out an episode, I did. And when I realized that what I was watching was really not worth it, I deleted it and moved on. Best of all, I didn’t have to watch a single commercial.

[Image credit: Leo Reynolds]

My DVR experience over the last several weeks has solidified my belief that a world without the DVR is one that I don’t want to live in. In fact, I think it would be a crying shame if we were forced to go back to a time when the DVR wouldn’t be available.

I realize that there are many people that don’t have DVRs and they’re just fine without them. They sit down at a specified time each night to watch their favorite shows, and they might even enjoy watching commercials. It’s a ritual of sorts that they’ve grown comfortable with. And it’s something that those people wouldn’t want to lose.

But I have a different take on it. I’m one of those people that can’t stand online ads, commercials, or any other advertising initiative that distracts me from what I’m trying to enjoy. So, when I have the chance to skip commercials, I can’t wait to take advantage.

There’s also the issue of watching all the many shows I want to to watch. At any given time, I might have two or three shows on that I would really like to watch. Rather than pick one, DVRs afford me the opportunity to not miss either show. It’s a great option that I think far too many people look past when they’re deciding against buying a TiVo or paying just a few bucks a month for their cable company-provided DVR.

Of course, I realize I’m not covering new ground by saying DVRs are a fine option for the living room. And I’m sure the vast majority of you out there agree with everything I’m saying. But I wonder — given TiVo’s history and the sub-par quality of standard DVRs — if enough people see value in them. TiVos aren’t exactly flying off store shelves, and I’m still shocked by the number of people in my life who aren’t using DVRs — and see no reason to do so.

There appears to be a divide among those who are DVR owners and those who are not. One group couldn’t live without DVRs, and another can’t see a reason to live with them. Whereas some say they’re worth the cost, others say that they aren’t. And although there are some folks who say DVRs give us more time to do other, healthier things in our lives, like read a book or take a walk, detractors say they keep us tied to our couch.

So, what’s the truth? At the end of the day, it all depends on the individual. But as far as I’m concerned, DVRs offer a host of benefits — and very little, if any, downside.

The GSMA weren’t the only ones who felt the iPhone 4 shone brightest at last year’s show; the fourth-gen smartphone was a constant benchmark for every new handset brought out to play. HTC managed to scoop device manufacturer of the year – something we think the firm may struggle to achieve in 2012, with Samsung a likely candidate instead – but each new phone was inevitably compared to Apple’s popular model.

Mobile World Congress 2012 is later in the month than in previous years, pushed back to the final week of February rather than around Valentine’s Day. That means geeks can finally spend the day of romance with their loved-ones – or alternatively lamenting that they’re Forever Alone – but it also plays neatly into Apple’s scheduling. With the third-gen iPad reportedly ready for March sales, it was probably too much to resist scheduling an event the invitations for which – in Apple tradition going out a week in advance – would drop straight in the middle of MWC and rivals’ big launches.

What’s interesting, though, is that 2012 could be the year that Android tablets come of age. Ice Cream Sandwich is a huge improvement on the clunky, uninspiring Honeycomb, and in effect hits reset on the Android tablet segment. Where 2011 was all about how smartphones held up to iPhones, this year’s burning question will be whether each manufacturer has done enough to prepare for the oncoming iPad onslaught.

The best challenge may well come from Samsung, which is tipped to bring a 2560 x 1600 11.6-inch tablet to the show, “barely larger” than the Galaxy Tab 10.1 thanks to a wafer-thin bezel, and running the new home-grown Exynos 5250 chipset. Samsung has already announced it will be saving the new Galaxy S III until later in the first-half of this year, presumably hoping to mimic Apple’s strategy and foreshadow the iPhone 5 believed to be coming in June or July.

Apple news or otherwise, SlashGear will be at Mobile World Congress later this month bringing back all the news as it’s announced. Keep up with all the details at our MWC 2012 hub.

You’ll see quite a rabble of people jumping for joy when Vic Gundotra makes simple note of the Full Screen option this week, with Gerwin Sturm getting credit as an avid coder and contributor to the Google+ project from the odd angles. It’s the community that surrounds a platform that makes it strong, of course, and though Skype does have one massive following and brand recognition to spare, there’s something to be said about Google’s simple integration and quickness with the updates to their systems. If you’re signed up for any one of Google’s different services, it’s just one more click to get into any of the rest of them – and thus the web does close in.

When I’ve got to teach a new employee or a colleague about something that requires me to show them on-screen what I’m doing, I use Google+. When I want to chat face-to-face with my wife across the country or the world, I use Google+. It’s becoming natural to me and the people I associate with very quickly, and with value added options such as the ability to collectively watch a YouTube video from the chat, Hangouts wont be cutting back any time soon.

Then there’s integration with smartphones – already live now. Plug your smartphone in to your HDTV with its HDMI or MHL port and you’ve got a camera and a giant screen to do large-scale video conferencing on the fly. The ability for Google to grow here is immense, and with video quality and the popularity of the program jumping each time someone like Barack Obama jumps on to have a chat, Google is in a great place with Hangouts.

What you’ve got here instead of a link in StumbleUpon that, like most other sites, leads out out to the 3rd party site as it should, is a inward link. This link shows you a window of the content you’re supposed to be seeing without actually bringing you to the link. To actually get to the link, you’d have to cut and paste the end of the StumbleUpon URL like a chump and make it so yourself. Back when Digg implemented a similar system with the DiggBar, then-CEO Kevin Rose backtracked to the point of saying that “[It's] bad for the Internet.”

God knows he’d say the same thing about this if he were in a position to make a comment. We’re seeing massive revolt on this change by StumbleUpon in social networks as well as in mails to our tip line, so I personally would like to suggest this to StumbleUpon: cut it out. At least make it an opt-in option, or the sites whose SEO and hit readers you’re destroying with this measure as well as your users who for so long have remained loyal to you will jump out and you’ll fail. Mark my words.

My issues with motion gaming have prompted me to turn my back on the Wii. In fact, I haven’t even seen my Wii in well over a year, since it’s been sitting in my closet with the rest of the obsolete and boring consoles I’ve bought over the years.

[Image credit: Cha già José]

Sony’s PlayStation Move is similarly useless to me. The wands add no value to my gaming experience and as far as I’m concerned, should be relegated to the junk heap in the PlayStation 4.

And now, we move to the Kinect. I’ve said here before that while the Kinect comes with a really cool technology, I’m not a fan of the peripheral. I do, however, acknowledge — like the Wii — that there are some people out there that see some value in a product like the Kinect.

But what saddens me is that Microsoft’s motion-gaming peripheral is, well, the next big thing in gaming.

Microsoft is doubling down on the Kinect. A software development kit that allows PC software developers to take advantage of the device’s technology is in the wild, and there is a very good chance that it might also become the go-to device for laptops.

In the beginning, that might mean PC gaming will be enhanced, but I can also see the device becoming a useful accessory for those developing other programs across a wide array of industries, including medical, manufacturing, and retail.

But it’s that gaming element that keeps holding me up.

According to the latest rumors, it’s possible Microsoft will launch the Xbox 720 with a Kinect camera built into the console. What’s more, there is some speculation that Sony might try to find a way to come close to matching the Kinect’s controller-less functionality.

Add that to the fact that the Kinect is selling exceedingly well and it quickly becomes clear that it could very well be Microsoft’s ticket to gaming dominance in the coming years.

I hate to say it, but the Microsoft Kinect is the next big thing in gaming. It’s already changed how console makers think, and it’s well on its way to transforming Windows PCs. But it’s the fact that it might play an even greater role in the next generation that’s enough to make me cringe.

Just when I hoped you would be out of my life, Kinect, you’ve found a way to become a part of it for the next several years.

Maybe it’s a good thing I own a Mac, eh?

But lost amid all that talk was Apple’s iPod. That device, which once meant nearly everything to the company’s success or failure, actually saw sales decline 21 percent to 15.4 million units sold worldwide. Over the last several quarters, similar scenarios have played out as consumers increasingly turn to Apple’s iPad and iPhone and turn their backs on the iPod.

Those sales declines make sense. Apple’s iPod has been on store shelves for over a decade now, and the vast majority of consumers who wanted a music player bought one of Apple’s devices long ago; the number of people who actually need an iPod has dwindled.

What’s more, Apple has incorporated iPod functionality into its iPhone and iPad, making the need to carry two devices to place calls and listen to music all but obsolete.

Given that, and considering iPod sales are on the decline, I can’t help but wonder: do we really still need an iPod?

If Apple’s sales last quarter is any indication, there are many of you out there that believes the iPod is still a worthy buy. And to some extent, I can understand that logic. After all, it’s nice to just bring the iPod Nano with you on a long run, rather than strap the iPhone to your shoulder. And getting away from e-mail to enjoy some music every now and then isn’t such a bad thing.

But for the rest of us that don’t necessarily want to get away from work or want all the functionality we need might find little value in iPods nowadays.

Every single Apple music player falls short from a feature perspective when it’s put up against the iPhone. Even the iPod Touch, which delivers all kinds of functionality, doesn’t support wireless calling, making it less-desirable to mobile customers.

Plus, there’s the issue of pricing. In today’s world of high unemployment, skyrocketing credit card bills, and tight budgets, most of us just aren’t willing to spend hundreds of dollars on two devices that can do pretty much the same thing.

Consider this: if you want to buy an iPhone 4S right now, you can get it for as little as $199 with a two-year contract. The 8GB iPod Touch has the exact same price. Even the 8GB iPod Nano is $129.

In other words, for those of us trying to save some cash, buying an iPod doesn’t necessarily make much sense.

As a person who owns three iPods, I can appreciate that many consumers out there don’t want to turn their backs on their favored music players just yet. But I think it’s time we do just that.

The iPod was great in the old days. But now, it’s just another device we care little about.

Facebook has plenty of mobile users – in fact in December 2011 over half of active members accessed the site via a mobile device – but it has very little control over that experience. So far, the social network hasn’t even monetized them: mobile visitors don’t see adverts, and in fact Facebook has cautioned potential investors that, if the current situation continues, it could actually see a reduction in revenue despite rising membership. However, it’s being subject to the whims of Apple and Google that really cause sleepless nights.

“We are dependent on the interoperability of Facebook with popular mobile operating systems that we do not control, such as Android and iOS,” Facebook wrote in its IPO filing. “Any changes in such systems that degrade our products’ functionality or give preferential treatment to competitive products could adversely affect Facebook usage on mobile devices.”

The answer, of course, is to build a platform of Facebook’s own: the until-now mythical Facebook Phone. Back in mid-2011, when HP was still floundering with webOS and receiving plenty of uninvited suggestions as to what it should do with the mobile platform, several people painted Facebook as a potential suitor. Then, the idea was that Facebook should buy webOS wholesale from HP, with the computer company likely to cut a good deal if it could get the platform off its hands.

Now, though, there’s no need for Facebook to open its wallet – at least not initially. HP is giving webOS away, having released it under an open-source license. It also addresses an early criticism of the first bout of Facebook-buying-webOS speculation: that it would leave the social network responsible for not only maintaining its own mobile software and services, but a variety of apps out of its usual beat. Browser, email client, calendar app: they’d all have to be dealt with.

Under HP’s open-source plans, though, it will take responsibility for keeping webOS up to date. In fact, the company has said we can expect a significant release every month for the next six or seven, and there’ll be further attention beyond that too. Facebook already has arguably the best dedicated mobile app for its site on the TouchPad, too, a useful shortcut when its app strategy has, until now, been lackluster.

There’d be room in such a scheme for HP to profit, too. Back when the company announced it would be open-sourcing webOS, it also said it would wait to see what third-party adoption was like before deciding whether or not to build a new generation of devices on the platform. At the time, that seemed unlikely, with all the most obvious names each tied up in their own existing mobile strategy: HTC and Samsung had plenty on their hands with Android and Windows Phone, Apple has iOS, Nokia had thrown in with Microsoft, and LG was pushing away trying to reclaim market-share with what it already had.

If a significant name like Facebook jumped onboard, though, that could prove a major draw to webOS. Something certainly sufficient to get HP thinking about whether its own phones and/or tablets might make sense. webOS struggled for the large part because there was no single reason why it was better than Android or iOS: no one point of appeal that HP could build a promotional campaign around. Facebook’s 800m users would certainly be an instant audience.

It’ll take more than just open-source to get a webOS Facebook phone off the ground. After all, Android is free to use, and the social network is still believed to have struggled with that. The core problem at the time, it’s suggested, was money: Facebook management had simply underestimated quite how much building a device from scratch costs.

Those naive failures pushed the company into the arms of HTC and others, resulting in devices like the Salsa and ChaCha; phones bearing the Facebook brand but with software entirely the handiwork of HTC itself and caution from Mark Zuckerberg that, rather than being the true “Facebook Phones”, they were examples of how the social site could be integrated into mobile.

The opportunity to show the definitive example of that is finally coming together, though. Facebook will soon have the cash to invest significantly into a mobile strategy of its own, along with access to an OS that’s been significantly under-developed but still has the backing of a major player in the computing space. Think of it as the social network’s “Nexus” moment only, unlike Google, the focus isn’t on the core software but the overall user experience. Your social life, the new Open Graph apps, Facebook’s existing strengths in games, all colliding.

Facebook knows a huge part of its future will be taking social mobile. Soon enough, Mark Zuckerberg and Co. will have the cash to show its 800m+ users exactly how it believes Facebook on the move should look.

Hirai’s promotion has led to a small bout of executive shuffles. Most notable is the company’s new Chief Strategy Officer and Executive Vice President Tadashi Saito, who until now has been President of Sony’s Semiconductor Business Group and Deputy President of the Professional, Device & Solutions Group. Although little has been said about overall strategy – Sony will likely outline more on its approach on Thursday, when it reveals its latest financial results – the promotion of a chipset exec likely recognizes the increasing “smart” potential of home entertainment devices like TVs.

“We can more rapidly and more widely offer consumers smartphones, laptops, tablets and televisions that seamlessly connect with one another and open up new worlds of online entertainment” Stringer said of the four-screen strategy back in October 2011. “This includes Sony’s own acclaimed network services, like the PlayStation Network and Sony Entertainment Network.”

Hirai’s big decision is exactly how closed an ecosystem Sony can afford to push. Apple’s approach – with iTunes, the iPod, iPhone, iPad and the App Store – has arguably worked because of the brand’s unique cachet with iOS. Sony, meanwhile, has struggled in the Android marketplace with its tablets, while Sony Ericsson has lingered behind Samsung and HTC in Android smartphones. The company’s TV business is also in trouble – a fourth year of losses for Sony, fueled by its underperforming TV division, is expected to be confirmed on Thursday – and it lacks the exclusivity of OS X or the cheap prices of Dell, HP, Acer and ASUS in computers.

If Sony goes for broad appeal – hoping to be at least one or two of the screens in front of non-Apple adopters, and adopting open standards like DLNA for content streaming – then it opens itself to rivals not only stepping into its ecosystem but doing better than it can. If the company takes the opposite approach, mimics Apple with proprietary systems, then it runs the risk of not finding enough buyers willing to splurge on an all Sony setup. The obvious halfway measure would be some degree of generic features with an exclusive subset solely for Sony devices, though that would require a careful balancing act.

It’s that balancing act that Stringer and the Sony Board apparently believes Hirai is capable of. Sony’s shares have plummeted in recent years, while those of its Cupertino rival has skyrocketed; the new CEO has plenty of work to do to convince not only buyers but investors that Sony has the ability – and he himself the vision – to deliver the compelling Apple alternative that has so far been conspicuous by its absence.

[Image credit: Trey Ratcliff]

Nowadays, there’s only one brick-and-mortar electronics store I visit on a regular basis: the Apple Store. As for Best Buy? Well, I see no reason to go there, and judging by the company’s recent disappointing quarters, it appears many folks agree.

But I’ll take it one step further. At some point in the next several years, Best Buy will fail just as the many companies that came before it have. And Apple Stores will be the only electronics store left standing.

Now, I’m sure there are some of you who will say that retailers like Best Buy need to exist. You might reason that many folks still need to head to retail stores to research products or get accessories when in a pinch. But with Amazon and others shipping products to homes in just a day and the ability to return those products without any financial recourse, I’m not so sure I agree with that logic.

Others might question why I believe Apple Stores will succeed where other companies are destined to fail. It’s simple: Apple’s retail stores offer a different, more-rewarding experience.

Whenever you go to an Apple Store, you’re immediately welcomed to a different environment. You have the ability to surf the Web, check your e-mail, or quickly charge your iPhone without worry of the salespeople stopping you. And if at that point you decide to walk out the door without even considering buying something, that’s just fine.

What’s more, the stores double as technical support locations, educational areas for those who are new to Apple products, and even fun places to bring the kids to try out the iPod Touch. Apple’s stores are about an experience — not just shopping.

Beyond that, I think Apple’s success will only further the company’s chances of succeeding in the brick-and-mortar. Consumers want to use the firm’s products, and they want to try them out as soon as they’re announced. There’s also a camaraderie that develops each year when consumers wait in line for hours just to be among the first people to have an iPhone or iPad.

Apple’s stores are, well, special.

So, as the chorus of critics who say that brick-and-mortar electronics stores will eventually die grows louder, it’s important to point out that Apple won’t be one of the victims.

You cay say what you want about Apple and what its current success represents to the industry, but if there’s one thing you can’t say about the iPhone maker, it’s that it doesn’t understand retail. As the last few years have shown, Apple understands it quite well. And the company will for the foreseeable future.

The first 3D printers could be considered rapid prototype machines which started to be widely available in the late 1980s. They started to work on a real level much earlier than that. Take the short time it’s been between the massive computers popping up in the last 100 years, inside our lifetimes, and the ultra tiny world of nanoprocessors today and you can see that we’re developing now at an absolutely explosive, exponential rate.

One article last week by Christopher Mims on Why 3D Printing Will Go the Way of Virtual Reality you’ll find that his view shows a less optimistic vision for the 3D printing world. While the technology today allows for plastics to be molded to our specifications in little to no time at all, it’s a long push to materials that otherwise need massive heat, time, effort, and other fine features to get the ball rolling. The big mind-over-matter thought comes from Tim Maly then of Quite Babylon who notes the time it’s taken to get from the press to the home press. It all seems reasonable to me.

So what do you think, home citizens? Do you think we’ll be printing up everything from toys to food to our own computers and back again soon? Or is it all in our imagination?

[Image via Wil Wheaton]

Deutsche Telekom scaled back investment in its network – as well as negotiations on new device exclusives and the like – when the AT&T deal looked like it would go ahead. With those plans in tatters, the carrier has been left playing catch-up. AT&T will be forced to hand over a $1bn chunk of AWS spectrum, but T-Mobile USA still has to invest in actually building out a usable network, something expects believe will cost three times the $3bn AT&T has also coughed up.

That demands monthly revenue, and that means subscribers, something T-Mobile USA is having trouble with. AT&T and Verizon have cornered the market in top-tier devices, as well as LTE options, and T-Mobile still misses out on the iPhone unlike the other three big US carriers.

Earlier today, T-Mobile UK announced what was described as “a UK first”: true unlimited talk, text and data. The new “Full Monty” packages do away with the fair-use policies and caps that have proliferated in the past few years, bundling everything – including tethering – into a single monthly payment. £41 ($64) each month for two years gets you zero caps along with a choice of recent smartphones including Android handsets and Apple’s iPhone for no upfront fee.

£41, for the UK, is a relatively expensive tariff. You can, in fact, get capped data packages with unlimited texts and/or calls for around half that amount, and still be handed a “free” smartphone upfront. T-Mobile UK is counting on potential subscribers keen to escape one of the worst headaches of the current mobile experience: having to keep track of usage. Those users will pay for the privilege of ignoring the call, message or data counter on their device.

It’s possible T-Mobile UK will be completely overwhelmed, surprised by how many people are looking for truly unlimited data, and see its network crumble under the deluge. The carrier has at least tried to provide ways of offsetting data from its HSPA+ frequencies (like with T-Mobile USA, there’s no LTE for the UK network): a WiFi deal with a nationwide hotspot provider promises to automatically shunt browsing onto a nearby wireless network, thanks to a free log-in app for smartphones.

T-Mobile USA has so far concentrated its hefty-contract options on family plans: multiple users being billed in one lump, sharing a pot of minutes, texts and data. That could easily be redressed to suit one, mobile-addicted subscriber pulled in by the lure of “true” unlimited. T-Mo would probably need to ink a hotspot deal or two to stop its spectrum being entirely bogged down, but that would likely be a whole lot easier – and quicker – than installing the AWS base stations required to make use of the airwaves it grabbed from AT&T.

Perception is everything. AT&T is expected to launch the Nokia Lumia 900 at $99.99 and, because it’s under $100 upfront, stand out from the rest of the market even though – over the course of the two year agreement – that hundred bucks difference from the raft of Android smartphones and the iPhone is little more than a drop in the subscription ocean. T-Mobile USA needs to use that same approach to its own advantage: wow potential subscribers with “free” devices – and not the usual year-old dross – and eye-catching “true” unlimited deals and use that predictable monthly revenue to pacify investors and fund the all-important network build out.

It’s not my job to promote this device, as it’s certainly doing well enough on it’s own at this point, but I’m not going to trash it where it doesn’t deserve to be trashed, either. Before I made this switch this weekend, I’d been using the Galaxy Nexus, that being the Samsung-made hero device for Google featuring the newest Android version 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich. The switch has been somewhat dramatic in how different it is to be using iOS 5, but much more so in the hardware: Apple has created a hero in this phone that they’re certainly proud of here, but can look forward to being proud of far into the future.

Take for example the original iPod: such a classic design that they still use a stylized version of it to describe an MP3 player not only in Apple products, but in other branded objects throughout our vast gadget kingdom. There’s no gigantic click-wheel to feel iconic with here, but the perfectly ideal nature of the device itself lends to an unforgettable experience in daily use. Google has attained this somewhat in each of its hero collaborations with groups like HTC and Samsung in their Nexus line as well, to a degree – the Nexus S is still one of my favorite Android devices hands-down.

I also own a third generation iPod Touch as well as an iPad 2, so iOS isn’t a brand new experience for me, but as I’ve still not upgraded the former to iOS 5, the smartphone experience really is a first for me here. I find iOS 5 to be strikingly similar to Android 2.3 Gingerbread. The pull-down menu for notifications, the dock of icons below the homescreens, the look of the icons themselves, and the settings menu all lend themselves to an easy learning experience back and forth between the two operating systems. For those of you that’ve never used a smartphone before, it’s nearly comparable to when Mac OS and Windows were first in contention: they’re technically not the same, but let’s be honest: they’re the same.

The first big difference here is the fact that because iPhone is so ubiquitous, developers are clearly able to have a much more one-on-one experience with the device itself rather than the operating system first, then the individual devices galore*. *This is true on essentially every other mobile operating system out there, as I’m sure you developers are well aware. Many apps are developed for iPhone first, then the rest of the operating systems out there simply because the user base on this same piece of hardware is so gigantic compared to any other setup.

The second big difference between the iPhone 4S and the rest of the smartphone world is in the all-powerful iPhone 4S camera. I had high hopes for the Galaxy Nexus and the supposedly awesomely powerful camera it had with instant shutter speed, but no such luck. The Samsung Galaxy Nexus has a 5 megapixel camera which has the ability to create some excellent photos if you’re in a position to stay still or have essentially awesome lighting conditions, but for the everyday photographer who just wants fantastic photos basically every single time one is shot, the iPhone 4S is such a winner that it’s unbelievable. Apple’s understanding that the camera can and should be one of the centers of the smartphone experience is perfectly displayed here, quite obviously.

The oneness of the device, the way I find myself using it each day, and the applications and hardware that I test with the iPhone 4S this week will all be included in write-ups for all to see throughout the week here on SlashGear. I’ll be exploring everything from the first 10 apps I download to how much I trust the device to do my daily work, work I cannot afford not to do lest I be tossed on the street. Please feel free to ask questions of me and/or the device as the week goes on, as this is also essentially my vast review of the device as it exists several months after its initial release. This is the first of many hands-on explorations, with a special emphasis being placed on switching specifically from Android over to iPhone.

Welcome to the iPhone 4S experience as seen through an Android-loving tech writer by the name of Chris Burns. Any and all suggestions, love, and hate-mail will be read and considered accordingly!

The first question I ask when I field the question is, “do you own an Xbox 360?”

Time and again, if they say yes, I tell them to skip the Apple TV. If they tell me that they don’t have an Xbox, I’ll tell them that they should buy one if they want to be entertained. Only if they tell me that they have no interest in gaming or don’t want to spend the extra cash to buy the Xbox will I tell them to get their hands on the Apple TV.

Now, I’m sure that there are many Apple fans out there that are appalled by that advice. Those folks use their Apple TVs each and every day, and they’re generally quite pleased with the experience.

However, the more objective among us might quickly determine that when it comes to a full-fledged entertainment experience for the living room, it’s becoming increasingly difficult to choose an Apple TV over a game console, like the Xbox 360.

Let’s face it: the Apple TV is hobbled in many ways. You can’t store content on the device, and the iTunes content library is limited. Plus, I just don’t see what’s so unique about it. The device features Netflix streaming, which is great, but I can find that elsewhere. And although its $99 price tag is great and all, I can get a Blu-ray player, complete with Netflix integration, for about the same price.

The Xbox 360, on the other hand, delivers a far more well-rounded experience. It has Netflix, Hulu Plus, and all the other desirable streaming options consumers expect to find, but it also lets me stream my content to it. Even better, I can play games or pop in a DVD if I so desire.

We also can’t forget about Microsoft’s desire to make the Xbox 360 a more television-focused hub in the living room. Currently, dozens of television content providers have signed up with Microsoft to offer content, and over the next several months, I think we’ll quickly find just how desirable that offering is.

I’m a firm believer in owning the best gadgetry in any market. And although the Apple TV is a solid set-top box that probably bests those from Roku and Boxee, among others, it’s no match for today’s game consoles.

At the end of the day, living room entertainment is about finding products that solve the many needs customers have. The only issue is, the Apple TV doesn’t do that – yet, anyway. The Xbox 360, on the other hand, does.

Remember back when Apple first introduced the Apple TV, and the company said that it was designed to be a hobby device? Well, in 2010, Apple co-founder Steve Jobs, after unveiling a new version of the device, said it was no longer a hobby. Now, though, it appears it is again, since Apple’s new CEO Tim Cook said earlier this week that the device is still — wait for it — a hobby.

I’m sure there are some out there that would disagree with Cook and say that the Apple TV is a full-featured device that shouldn’t be classified as a hobby. And I’m sure they might be able to make that argument quite effectively.

But I’m here to tell those folks, and all those that aren’t quite sure if the Apple TV is a hobby or not, that it is, in fact, a hobby.

Luckily, though, I have some solutions for addressing that problem.

First and foremost, Apple should stop playing the streaming-only game with the Apple TV. As much as Apple might not want to admit it, today’s consumers still need local storage. We want to be able to put movies on the device, access games, and have ready access to our content whenever the Internet is down in our homes. The Internet is great and all, but there’s still something to be said for offline access.

What’s more, Apple should be bringing App Store support to the device. Apps have become a key reason we buy iPhones and iPads, and to not have access to it on a device that connects to a television — a place many people are using sub-par applications right now — is a real issue.

That idea dovetails on my next point: if Apple wants to make the Apple TV a serious device, it’ll need to take down Google TV.

At the Consumer Electronics Show earlier this month, a host of vendors showed off products featuring Google TV. The service will be bundled in televisions and other products, and most importantly, feature applications people want to use. Call me crazy, but I think Google TV might actually have a shot this year. And if it succeeds, Apple’s hobby will be pushed aside.

Finally, Apple needs to realize that gaming is an integral component in the success or failure of set-top boxes today. Sony’s PlayStation 3 and Microsoft’s Xbox 360 are popular not only for their gaming, but for their additional content. Apple has all that additional content, but lacks the gaming.

Luckily for Apple, it wouldn’t necessarily need to go too far with bringing gaming to the Apple TV. I don’t think the mainstream consumer wants Modern Warfare 3-like graphics on an Apple TV, and would instead be content with playing the casual titles they already access on their iPhones and iPads. Even better, the iPhone and iPad could be used as a controller, which means Apple wouldn’t need to invest in additional accessories.

It’s about time Apple removes the Apple TV from the hobby box and brings it into the living room to be a serious competitor to all the other solutions out there. By doing so, Apple could go a long way in proving it has what it takes to be successful in yet another market.

To recap: Nokia and Microsoft shake hands and agree to make the beast with polycarbonate backs in February 2011, shelving MeeGo and confirming that the end is nigh for Symbian. The news prompts months of speculation and will-they-deliver-on-time controversy, until Nokia World 2011 in October and the unveil of the Lumia 800 and Lumia 710, only slightly blunted by Nokia reusing the industrial design for its de-facto flagship from the N9 several months before.

Fast forward to today, and Nokia has its all-important sales figures for the new Lumia devices – “well over 1m” in a little over two months of availability – and plenty of bad news too. Loses nearing a billion Euros, device sales down 29-percent, and Nokia making less on each smartphone it sells. Meanwhile the developing market Steven Elop had counted on providing the Symbian long-tail decided to rebuff the offer of cheap Nokia smartphones in favor of cheap Android ones instead.

The market has spoken, anyway: Nokia’s share price is up over 4-percent today, though you’d still struggle to confuse it with that of Apple or Samsung. Windows Phone has an above-average track record of striking a chord among tech reviewers, and that – taken with the fact that many have a soft-spot for Nokia, and that the Lumia 800/900 are genuinely tactile, delightfully designed phones – has resulted in a shiver of positivity despite the diarrhea of cash.

It gets harder from here, though. To succeed at this point, Nokia had to show up with a device or two, get them onto the market before the end of 2011 so as to prove its new CEO could keep his word, and sell more than a handful. Three boxes ticked. But Nokia has plucked a lot of the low-hanging fruit now: the true “Nokia faithful” have gone out and grabbed their slice of Finnish history, and much of what’s left is a market obsessed with Apple and Android.

It’s also unfamiliar territory for the company. In the past, Nokia has had both unique hardware and software to rely on: after a few tentative – and quickly aborted – attempts to use Symbian by other firms, the Finns were pretty much left to their own devices. Now Nokia faces not only Android and iPhone, but a raft of other Windows Phone OEMs keen to make some return on the licensing and marketing budgets Microsoft has squeezed out of them. If it makes a success of Windows Phone, if all those color-block adverts promoting the platform take hold, there’s no guarantee that the WIndows Phone shoppers leave the store with will necessarily have a Nokia logo on it.

Apathy works in its favor; HTC, Samsung, LG and others are all distracted by their Android investment, whereas Nokia knows its future is dependent on Windows Phone clawing market share. The risk of failure is obviously higher, too.

Nokia’s strength has always been in economy of scale: making lots of devices that use the same core hardware and driving down pricing that way. As its Windows Phone effort ramps up, there’s a decent chance that will increase gross margin per handset. Still, it needs demand to justify producing warehouses full of Lumias, and that means a compelling range for the US, Europe and Far East markets where smartphone choice has us jaded, along with affordable models for developing markets that, crucially, won’t cannibalize cheaper device sales too quickly.

Mobile World Congress is late next month, and Nokia is likely to have at least one more Windows Phone to show us. Shortly after that, the Lumia 900 will launch on AT&T and give the US its first decent taste of Nokia in some time. We’ve already said our piece on why AT&T should go against form and hammer down the sticker price of the LTE Lumia if it wants to stand a chance at getting traction.

Wielding a firehose of cash that’s gushing like a sick snake isn’t a great way to begin 2012, but Nokia has had it worse. This time last year, for instance, it had slumping profits and nothing compelling in its line-up whatsoever. The end is nowhere near in sight, but then again it never really is: there’s always something shinier and cleverer just around the corner. If Nokia can grab even a minority share of that roller-coaster then its prospects are good.

What the folks at Lytro are doing is taking the light field studies done over the past 15 years and packing it it into the smallest package they could manage. What this results in is a 4.41-inch long rectangle whose other dimensions are 1.61-inchs by 1.61-inches. Inside this box of magic comes a collection of lenses, each of which are required to create the environment in which the entire field of light can be captured all at once.

Inside the first 3/5ths of the device are the lenses, staring with an 8x optical zoom and a f/2 aperture lens, this aperture being constant across the zoom range allowing you to capture everything at once. The bits and pieces in this section of the current Lytro Light Field Camera must be spaced apart at such a length that integration into a smartphone would be impossible. Impossible, that is, unless you’d like a really, really thick phone in your hands. Between the lens section and the back of the device, you’ve got your light field sensor, this being a micro-lens array “specially adhered” to a standard sensor allowing for the capture of 11 million light rays at once.

Then comes the other big bit, nearly a third of the device being taken up by the Light Field Engine version 1.0. This engine is what replaces what was the original supercomputer used 15 years ago in the first recorded light field tests, this the piece of the device that allows the ability to refocus any image on the fly to be integrated in the picture file itself. It’s certainly much smaller than supercomputers of old, but it’s also no small cookie – certainly thicker on its own than you’ll want your smartphone to be.

So we’ll have to wait on this one, folks, wait until they can shrink the whole equation down again to a level where it’ll fit into your pocket the short way. Right now you’ll just have to buy yourself a Lytro camera separate and have fun that way. Oh well!

But here’s the problem: people purchased that original Droid RAZR, believe it or not, and in the several iterations that have come out since – purple, white, one pumped up by CeeLo in a Twitter campaign of sorts – there’s been no giant lack of interest. But then there’s a new version which costs the same price and has a much larger battery. How could a person who understands what’s happened here after they laid down their $300 on the first version not be a little ticked off?

Then there’s another version of the Droid RAZR out there as well which has a reduced price, $200, and the same set of specifications as the original, but this time with no 16GB microSD built in. So the separation of prices begins. Is this because Motorola and Verizon had this all planned well in advance, or is it because they wanted to see how well the original Droid RAZR did before they split the stock, so to speak, with prices and specifications? This situation doesn’t seem fair to early adopters at all, and there’s a lot of dissatisfied customers out there now as a results of it.

“Our Apple TV product is doing quite well… but in the scheme of things, we still classify Apple TV as a hobby” Tim Cook said during the post-results financial call yesterday. “We continue to add things to it. If you’re using the latest one – I don’t know about you, but I can’t live without it.”

Problem is, Apple is doing very well at making sure a whole lot of people can live without Apple TV. With a record quarter in revenues under its belt, it’s hard to call any aspect of the company’s performance an actual failure, but when you contrast 1.4m Apple TV sales with 37m iPhones or 15.4m iPods – even 5.2m Macs – it’s clear to see which was the under-performer.

Apple’s strength has always been at the meeting point of hardware and software: doing “magical” things that make everyone else look mundane. The Apple TV is certainly capable of such “magic”, but it’s not Apple doing it. HTML5 gaming, running iOS apps, even becoming a 1080p media center… the Apple TV has done it all, but only at the hands of the third-party developer community.

It could have been very different. Apple’s gaming ambitions for the Apple TV have been well-discussed; the company already has a broad portfolio of third-party titles, sufficient processing power inside the STB, and the ideal controllers in the iPod touch, iPhone and iPad. With iOS at its core, Apple could’ve easily opened up a pared-down App Store with a selection of flagship titles.

For a moment, with the first generation of the Google TV being such a wretched let-down, it looked like Apple had the perfect opportunity to show us what smart TV should be like. Just as the iPhone made us look at smartphones differently, the iPod encapsulated the simplicity of the ideal PMP, and the iPad shaped the consumer tablet market, Apple TV had the chance to beat Google to the market with app support and show couch potatoes what they were missing because of their dumb TVs.

That opportunity is fast expiring. Google’s second-generation of Google TV may not be perfect but it will be cheap and ubiquitous: shifting to ARM processors from Intel’s comparatively expensive platform opens the door to a huge range of low-cost smart TV devices building on the open-source OS. And it really can be cheap; only this week Raspberry Pi was talking about how its $25 computer has better graphics abilities than an iPhone 4S or NVIDIA’s Tegra 2 chipset. Slap it in an enclosure, get it online and you’ve got a 1080p-capable streaming, gaming powerhouse that’s legitimately interesting while Apple TV remains a yawnfest.

Meanwhile, Google’s Eric Schmidt predicting Google TV will be on the majority of new TVs by this coming summer is looking a lot more practical. Smart TV was big news at CES this month, and there’s a solid chance that the chipsets OEMs like Samsung, LG and others have picked for their home-grown internet connected sets would be just as happy running Google’s software as they are proprietary platforms.

Apple isn’t out of the game, but it’s squandering more opportunities than rivals would get away with. On that it gets a pass-card of sorts, based on previous form. Still, continuing to treat smart TV as a hobby is a surefire way to miss out on a key element of the smart home ecosystem. Tim Cook may be content to tinker, but Apple TV eventually needs to step up and earn its keep.

In an interview with the BBC, Gary Shapiro, the head of the CEA, which is the association that runs the Consumer Electronics Show, made some comments about the unfortunate necessity of booth babes. Surprisingly, Gizmodo published an editorial taking Shapiro to task. Let that sink in for a moment. Gizmodo. Arguing against booth babes. The same Gizmodo that published a story a week earlier in which one of their writers dances awkwardly with a couple of models who clearly would rather be elsewhere. Now, I’m not criticizing Gizmodo. I like that site and their coverage. I like that they have a variety of editorial voices, on both sides of an issue. I think that highlights the complicated nature of the problem.

Gary Shapiro tried to respond by apologizing. He did a fair job, but it’s hard to say the right thing on the Internet, and in the interest of brevity, I think some of his nuance was off. He’s taken to task in the comments forum on AutoStraddle, and I think it’s fair to say we’ve beaten up Gary enough for one day. There’s always tomorrow. The proof of the pudding is in the eating, so let’s see if CEA adopts any formal policies toward booth babes before the next CES rolls around next year.

There’s really no civil way to argue in favor of booth babes, though I may try, if you’ll indulge. I’d like to offer a slightly different perspective on booth babes, one of power and weakness.

Is there something wrong with hiring an attractive person to lure people toward your products? Maybe, but not in this way. I have a much bigger problem with the retouching, airbrushing and special effects that go into television commercials and print magazine ads than I do with models in person. In person, the women who work as booth models are undeniably attractive, and perhaps dressed in ways that would be inappropriate for the average attendee. But they aren’t impossible. They aren’t a false version of what a woman or man can look like.

Okay, I threw that one in to be PC. I did not see any male booth models at CES, so I’m just going to drop that pretense.

In any case, saying that a company should not hire attractive models for their booth is also saying that an attractive person should not find gainful employment as a booth model. That seems wrong, too. I’m sure there are physiological studies that measure the response in humans when they see a person they deem attractive. The Consumer Electronics Show is a giant advertisement. The booths exist explicitly to attract your attention. I have no moral objection to a woman working as a model, so why would I have a problem with a company hiring a woman to help showcase a product line?

Well, I’ll tell you why I have a problem with it. Booth babes make me uncomfortable. I know there are guys at the show who enjoy the booth babes, perhaps too much. I’m not a sleazeball. I don’t pinch or squeeze strangers. I don’t hand out my room key to just anyone I meet. I don’t flirt at trade shows. When I’m at a trade show, I’m working. I’m focused on my topic. Booth babes have an inherent sexuality to them, and this isn’t the venue for it.

When I get home from CES, I inevitably have three groups of photos. I have my product shots from the show floor. I have my candid shots hanging out with friends and touring the Vegas strip. And I have the booth babe shots, which are something like the photographs in National Geographic. They serve to document, not titillate. I show them to friends as an illustration of what I did and what I saw. But of those three groups of photos, guess which pile is the largest?

The product shots. Remember, I’m working. Then, the scenery. I could snap the fountains at the Bellagio for hours on end. Finally, the smallest group is the booth babes. This year, I didn’t take a single booth babe shot.

As a man, I’m embarrassed to take photos of the booth babes, or with the booth babes. I’m embarrassed to stop and stare at them. When I do talk to them, I’m often annoyed because they don’t have the information I need. They aren’t paid very well, so they aren’t trained in the nuances of the products. They don’t know which processor is in that phone, or how large the battery is in mAh. This is in no way their fault, or a reflection on them as individuals. It’s not their job to know.

I want to talk to the other people. The people who do make it their job to know.

It’s time to give up on the booth babes. Make an attractive product and people will come to it. Make an interesting pitch and people will listen. If you have to rely on booth babes to sell, you might want to question what you’re selling, and to whom. And if you’re an attendee and you feel the booth babes are a necessity of the show, I might suggest another place where you can find all the pictures of attractive people you desire. It’s called the Internet. You’re looking at it right now.

Compared to last year, the percentage change in units and revenue in the iPhone category was 128% and 133%, this meaning that the change is only slightly greater there than it was between this quarter and the last quarter of 2011. So the first quarter of 2011 and the last quarter of 2011 are fairly similar in their overall totals. The difference between Q4 2011 and Q1 2012 then, percentage-wise, is 117% in units and 122% in revenue. This of course means that we can guess that the last quarter of 2012 will be somewhat similar to this first quarter, the first quarter of 2013 then being the next big jump in sales.

Another point to pick out of all the statistics on this particular earnings call is that the only negative numbers anywhere in the whole report are seen when you compare iPod sales to last year at this time. Units sold when you compare Q1 of 2012 to Q1 of 2011 were down 21%, with revenue also falling 26%. Is this the end of the iPod age? Will we never see a rise in sales again? This all depends on if there’s an equitable model popping up before the end of the year, of course – seeya then!

Heins’ arguments make sense – up to a point. He’s right in that few of RIM’s contemporaries have a complete grip on each element of the mobile experience; only Apple and RIM can really boast that. “We’re strong because we have an integrated solution: network, services, enterprise service and fantastic devices and a fantastic ecosystem” Heins argued when asked about potentially licensing BlackBerry 10 to rivals. “I want to build on that, I will not in any way separate that.”

Keeping control can certainly give you the edge. HTC has discovered to its cost the perils of relying on a third-party for your software, for instance, with its Android range: the company went from being the darling of the Android smartphone industry to struggling at differentiating itself, as Google progressively integrated the tweaks and enhancements in HTC Sense into the core OS for every licensee to enjoy.

It’s when you consider the current BlackBerry line-up that the holes in Heins’ argument become apparent, though. RIM controls the ecosystem of a selection of underwhelming phones that look – with perhaps the exception of the Bold 9900 hardware, if not the software experience – passé in comparison to what’s coming out of Apple, Samsung and others. Nokia knows how that feels: it has complete dominion of Symbian, after all, and look how well that’s turned out.

Heins has been Chief Operating Officer at RIM – a role in which he claims company management made no attempt to hold back or limit his ambitions for the BlackBerry business – and before that SVP of the Handheld Business Unit. It’s hard, on the face of it, to see what new thinking or design revolution he could be readying, unless he has been secretly clutching a portfolio of “How To Save RIM” models and strategies all this time that have so far gone unmentioned.

Speaking of the new CEO, freshly-elected independent board chair Barbara Stymiest says “we have been impressed with [Heins'] outstanding management skills, his leadership and his accomplishments within the company.” The more you look at his elevation, the more it seems like RIM is treading water: as we suggested might be a decent strategy earlier this month, it looks like Lazaridis and Balsillie have stepped back to temporarily placate the investors and give business-as-usual the chance to go on unimpeded until BlackBerry 10 finally reaches the market.

Problem is, that strategy was only ever going to buy time, not save the company overall, and with little to indicate Heins has the tactics to turn things around – or even the awareness of what needs turning – there’s a growing sense that he’s an interim placeholder, not the long-term salvation RIM quietly knows it needs. Comparisons are already being drawn with Nokia CEO Stephen Elop, drafted in to shake the company to its core; at least, though, Elop did something fundamental, rather than grab the wheel from his predecessors but stubbornly keep it turned in the direction of the cliff.

Nothing, it seems, can bring the BlackBerry 10 line-up to market any sooner than has been promised before. What we – and investors – needed to hear from RIM’s new CEO was self-awareness, not back-slapping. Thorsten Heins may not believe any drastic change is needed, but he’s the only one with that confidence.

Regardless, I now have HBO Go. And after using it for the past several days for more hours than I’d like to count, I can say now, with certainty, that HBO Go has a strong chance of becoming the next Netflix.

Now, I’ll freely admit that there are some major differences between HBO Go and Netflix, the most notable being that HBO’s service only offers its own content. What’s more, it’s only available to HBO subscribers, which could stunt its growth a bit.

But beyond that, I’m seeing nothing but good things from HBO Go. The service works exceptionally well, and offers all the episodes of all the shows the network has aired in recent years. What’s more, it also includes movies, documentaries, and HBO’s stellar sports series, making it the complete package, in my book.

Would it be nice to have content from other services? Sure. But you know what? HBO’s series lineup is so good, I don’t quite miss access to, say, “The Office” or “How I Met Your Mother.” I’m more than content watching “The Sopranos,” “Entourage,” or “Curb Your Enthusiasm.”

In the coming years, I think HBO, with the right strategy, could make its service far better than Netflix. Time Warner has strong ties with Hollywood studios, automatically putting it ahead of the game against Netflix. And if it can start bringing the service to more devices, including game consoles and set-top boxes — its Achilles heel right now — I could see HBO Go’s adoption skyrocketing.

Whereas Netflix has quickly become a TV-focused service that comes with outdated movies for everyone else, HBO Go has the potential to become the go-to place for movie content. With the right content deals, I just don’t see any way Time Warner won’t be able to add many more films to the service to round out what is already a content-heavy solution.

So, I see nothing but potential for HBO Go. I was skeptical of its value initially, but after getting to try the service out, it’s clear now that my concerns were unwarranted. Are there limitations to its focus that could hold it back from realizing its full potential? Sure. Might HBO try to stick with its current business model and fail to achieve the kind of results it could? Of course.

But if the company plays its cards right, I think there’s a real chance HBO Go becomes a better — and more-desired — destination than Netflix.

[Image credit: Maryland State Archives]

Every single witch was naked. And Polanski didn’t stop at the three witches in the script. There were dozens of them. Naked, cackling, ancient, overweight witches caked in dirt and grime, stirring cauldrons. I was obviously worried about showing this movie, unedited, to my tenth graders. But I asked my principal for permission first. I pulled up the scene and she and I watched it together.

“Do you see anything sexual here? Because I wouldn’t want to show them anything sexual,” she said. What I saw on the screen was probably the least sexual scene I had ever witnessed in a movie. It’s the kind of scene I’d call to mind if I wanted to hold out a little longer, if you know what I mean. So I showed it.

I didn’t just show it. I presented it. I played it on my class projector. I didn’t need a screen because my walls were painted white, so I threw the movie large from floor to ceiling. I pumped the sound through my nice 2.1 speaker system. Because I had ripped the movie to my hard drive (I’m claiming fair use as a teacher), I could stop and start easily so we could discuss scenes.

At one point I stop and stood in front of the room, asking basic recall questions to make sure my students were paying attention. They were staring straight at me, but they weren’t answering my questions. They were holding back laughter. Of course, I had stopped on one of the witches scenes without thinking. I hadn’t turned the projector off, and it was aimed directly at me. Where my pasty white face should have been hovering before them, instead I was plastered with a gigantic, ancient nipple the size of a serving platter. I was a boob in front of the room, trying to get 20 or so fifteen year olds to take me seriously. When I realized, even I cracked up.

Now let me back up and explain what’s really happening here. In my classroom, I had two computers. I had an old bondi blue iMac, the very first on the market, on my desk. I used it only for attendance and internal email correspondence with other staff members. It could hardly manage much else. The movie file was stored on my personal 17-inch Powerbook, a holdover from my days working in production at dotcoms. The speakers were my personal set. The projector I used was the only one in the school. Most of the computers did not have the proper VGA connection to hook up to the projector, and even if they did, most of the teachers, who were young and fresh and extremely bright, could not troubleshoot the connection, anyway. There was little competition for the projector, and it stayed in my classroom for most of the year.

My school had one computer lab, with just enough computers so that everyone in a class got a seat. They were Internet connected, but there was no internal server, so students couldn’t store their work in a central location. If they forgot on which computer they started a report, they might lose it forever. If a malicious student came along next and deleted the files, there was nothing we could do. The students couldn’t afford flash drives, and the school couldn’t afford to provide thumb drives for them. Some students had floppy disks, but there were only two USB floppy drives that would work with our computers, and one of those was usually broken. Try telling a room full of students that it’s time to pack up and head to their next class, then watch them pass the floppy drive around while they frantically save their work.

I taught at one of the better schools in the city. It was a successful charter school, so in addition to the public funding, we raised extra money ourselves. This was still the best technology we could manage. I can’t imagine what the average school had to use, let alone the schools in the neighborhoods where property values provided the lowest level of taxes to support education. Did you know most school funds come from property taxes? If you live in a neighborhood with expensive houses, your school has more money. So it goes.

When our school got a little bit of extra money, we fixed things. We added new whiteboards, or bought new chairs. When we got more money, we hired people. We hired teachers, or tutors, or special educators. Students took five courses, all the same. Every student took English, Math, Science, History, and Spanish. We offered no other languages, no art, no physical education. No music. When the school raised a ton of money after years of successful fundraising, we bought a new building and moved out of the basement of the YMCA, where we shared space with homeless veterans and a women’s shelter.

Technology, like new computers, was low on the list. Very low. It’s not that the school didn’t care about technology, it just couldn’t be a priority. The teachers were not trained in new gadgets, and we didn’t have the time to train ourselves. The students did not live in a world of mp3 players and tablet computers. They had computers at home, but many of them lacked an Internet connection, or a printer. Some had to rely on the local public library to use a connected machine.

There are red herrings in the arguments over teaching. There are easy targets that most people agree need to be changed dramatically. Textbooks are one of these. It’s easy to look at the sorry state of textbooks and decide that they could use an upgrade. When you see a kid carrying 30 pounds of paper and cardboard on her back, this seems like an obvious fix. But in my five years teaching in urban schools, in schools where 90% or more of the students qualified for a free lunch, I never once pointed to textbooks as a priority that I would like to change. I never felt that my lack of technology in the classroom was the main issue holding us back.

The problem with education is, and always will be, a human issue. When I start arguing the topic, and it’s hard for me to refrain from jumping into an argument about education, I’m often asked what needs to change to fix our education problems. Is it the students? The parents? The administration and the budgets? The school district and the federal regulations? The teachers? What is it?

It’s everything. It is every last one of those things. But I promise you that everything you think you know about the problems in education is wrong. Maybe you’ve heard that the students are lazy and don’t have any ambition. Maybe you’ve heard that the parents don’t care, or they care too much and stifle the teachers. Maybe you’ve seen administrative bloat and budgets that need to be trimmed back before they are increased. Perhaps you’ve heard the term “teaching to the test.” Most of all, you’ve definitely heard about the teacher’s unions protecting bad teachers while the good ones leave the profession early because they are so underpaid.

I could write a column on any one of those issues. The idea that students are lazy hurts me the most. Lazy is a code word. When someone calls a student lazy, they are dismissing that student. I never met a lazy student. There was always something else going on. There was something missing from their lives, or something missing from my teaching, that made them behave in ways ignorant critics would deem lazy.

I never met a parent who didn’t care, though I met many who never showed up to school meetings, mostly because they were working night shifts and 16 hour days to make ends meet. As far as teachers leaving, teachers should definitely be paid more, but that’s not why I left the profession, and I suspect it’s not why most teachers quit within 5 years of starting out. I left teaching to take a job that paid half as much. So I’ll tell you why I left.

I could never do enough for my students. I worked 12 hour days, and always on weekends. I graded dozens, even hundreds of papers in a week. I could never plan enough. I could never provide enough feedback. And I wasn’t remotely the best teacher at my school. I can’t imagine how the best teachers tortured themselves, and many of them are still teaching.

If you want to reinvent the textbook, by all means, go ahead. I’m sure that college students will love the fancier books, and professors will make even more money publishing endless revisions and selling the fresh copies without losing money to an intermediary publisher. I have no quarrel with that.

But don’t think that will fix our public education problems in any way. If you want to fix education, you won’t be able to do it with software and technology. You need to start with the people. Help them. Respect them and support them. But most importantly, hire as many of them as you possibly can. There is unimaginable work to be done.

Apple makes the iPad, the iPad 2, and will soon (as in sometime this year) will release another iPad unit, be it an iPad 3 or an iPad 2S, containing a software upgrade not unlike the update made to the iPhone 4 with the 4S. What will happen then is the price model will be adjusted yet again to the point where the least powerful iPad, the original iPad, will be nearly free. It wont be free to all customers though, it’ll be subsidized, as it always should have been, to school classrooms across the United States and perhaps across the world.

If Apple wants to start a real revolution in the world of Education, they need to make a move that will actually change the way we work with computers, something as big as the release of the iPad or the iPhone itself. Price is key at this point, not specifications, and Apple has the power to make the classroom a place of the future while at the same time building themselves up as the Education-focused group they’ve said they were since their inception.

[Image credit: Tai Chiem]

Therefore, many people reason, Sony will be offering up its console within the next 24 months.

I hate to be the guy who comes in and gives those hopeful folks the bad news, but I just don’t see that happening. Sure, Nintendo is launching the Wii U this year and there’s a good chance it’ll appeal to many consumers, but that device is far more of a catch-up product to match the Xbox 360 and the PlayStation 3, rather than a console that can set a new standard in gameplay.

What’s more, if we examine Sony’s sales over the last several years, it becomes abundantly clear that the company’s claim that the console really is a ten-year device might just hold up.

Sony has seen console sales grow year-over-year since the PlayStation 3 first launched. What’s more, with nearly 60 million consoles sold worldwide, there’s a strong possibility that Sony’s device could surpass the Xbox 360 in total sales within the next year.

Those that have been watching NPD release their sales figures each month with Microsoft’s hardware in the lead might find that surprising. However, it’s important to note that NPD’s figures are U.S.-only, making them a sub-par barometer of how all gamers actually feel about the consoles. Elsewhere around the world, especially in Japan, the PlayStation 3 is dominating the Xbox 360.

But that’s just sales. The fact is, the PlayStation 3 is still one of the best Blu-ray players on the market, and its graphical prowess is top-notch. As always, gamers would like to see even better graphics, but at this point, I’m not quite sure how much of an improvement we could actually get if Sony launches a new console this year or next.

So, I think it’s time we acknowledge that the PlayStation 3, while not perfect by any means, doesn’t need to be replaced anytime soon. The console is still commercially viable, it’s still delivering high-quality experiences, and it’s priced right for consumers. Stunting its growth now would be a mistake of epic proportions.

Don’t even think about launching a new PlayStation this year or next, Sony. You have something solid already in place — and you shouldn’t want to mess that up.

Market share for Windows Phone is always something Microsoft has been coy about. So far, we’ve mainly been forced to go on unofficial figures by stats companies like Gartner and Nielsen, with the latter saying earlier this week that Windows Phone held 1.3-percent of the US market in 2011. There’s a little positive news for Microsoft in the stats too – in the final quarter of last year, 1.4-percent of new US smartphone buyers opted for a Windows Phone device – but it’s not the snowballing demand that might have been hoped for.

Microsoft has turned to Nokia for its smartphone salvation, a deal that has been roundly discussed, criticized and – not least by the Symbian faithful – complained about. The Finns responded with three devices, the Lumia 710, 800 and 900, and plenty of hyperbole, Nokia CEO describing them as the “first real Windows Phones.” Accurate sales figures from Nokia, though, have been similarly MIA, with the company doing little to counter suggestions that carriers have been underwhelmed by demand and disappointed with the proportion of returns.

Ironically, Microsoft’s big success in mobile looks to be Android; the company has inked a string of patent licensing deals over the past eighteen months, with companies including Samsung, HTC and LG, and only Motorola Mobility remains as the significant hold-out. Details on exactly how much Microsoft makes from each Android device sale are unclear, though estimates peg it anywhere between $10 and $30 per handset. That’s not something it can quote to paint a rosy picture of Windows Phone, however.

On one level, it’s no great issue that Windows Phone sales aren’t contributing sufficiently to Microsoft’s bottom line that the company believes they’re worth mentioning. After all, revenue is up 5-percent year-on-year nonetheless. Yet, as an integral part of the company’s “three screens and a cloud” strategy, Microsoft can’t afford to let its smartphone OS slip. As the most-used devices in our modern arsenal, a phone represents not just a mobile platform but a gateway to app sales, location-based advertising and more.

Our lingering hope is that Microsoft takes the wrap off of Windows Phone stats come Mobile World Congress 2012 late next month. The platform made its sales debut in Europe back in Q4 2010; perhaps Microsoft will save some big numbers for its next European appearance. That also gives Nokia time to shift a few more Lumia, and Microsoft an opportunity to showcase the new Windows Phones its other OEM partners have come up with.

There’s only so long this air of mystery can hold out. Windows Phone no longer has its “new on the block” excuse to fall back on, and sales figure reticence is looking increasingly like Microsoft is hiding some very bad news.

Instead, what we’ve got here is a simple set of facts: first of all, if you DO want to switch to the new data plan, you’re getting more data per dollar. Where before the prices were $15, $25, and $25, now they cost $20, $30, and $50. With these prices comes an increase per dollar of 2MB, 20MB, and 100MB. That’s substantial for those of you that use more data than you’re allowed on the current plans, and it’s GOOD for people that would otherwise be going OVER the basic amount of data per month, incurring added fees.

Then there’s this fact: new customers will not see a price increase. New customers, quite simply, did not have the old prices in the first place, because they were not customers until now – that’s what makes them new. For those of you new to economics, the only price increase here is for people that elect to change their prices themselves. There’s no tricks here, only a price adjustment AT&T is making for the future of mobile data usage.

All that said, I think data should be MUCH cheaper than it is now, so it’s all nonsense when it comes down to it.

Next, they complain that the apps drawer button isn’t in the same place on the tablets with Ice Cream Sandwich as it is on the Galaxy Nexus, a smartphone. The very last set of paragraphs is title “I’ll soon be testing on a tablet.” This comes AFTER the title of the full article which is called “Android 4.0 for Tablets Still Needs Work.” The article also says that the iPad is far superior simply because it used the same interface as the iPhone and the iPod Touch when it launched, this allowing people to use it with little to no learning curve whatsoever.

Though this is a column you’re reading here, and it should be clear that this is my own opinion, I say it again: this is my own opinion: thou shalt not judge an operating system after you’ve used it for less time than it takes to take a dump. When you do this, the article you’ve written ends up looking and smelling just like that: a dump for judgements passed with inadequate time put in to judge. So that’s what I’m doing here as well: writers, you still need work, I’ll be testing you soon.

For the rest of you out there in the gadget and tech publishing world, know this: when we get an adequate amount of time to review the tablet side of Ice Cream Sandwich, we’ll do it, and you’ll know what it’s really made of.

Fast, small PCs aren’t especially new, though it’s only now that processor and graphics technology has caught up that SFF models can hold a candle to the bulky PC gaming rigs of old. Sony and Microsoft fettle their dedicated consoles to pretty much a single purpose, delivering optimum gaming performance from a device that has to work as an predictable appliance; it also means their abilities are pretty much unchanged since their hardware was first announced. The X51, in its high-spec’d form at least, is likely to be capable of better graphics and handling more intensive games.

The tipping point will come when Windows 8 arrives. Microsoft has already said that it plans to support Xbox LIVE on Windows 8 PCs, hooking platform-specific as well as other titles into the social and ranking system. “Live has been successful on the Windows Phone. Live will be built into the PC” Microsoft’s VP of global marketing Mike Delman said back in June 2011. “It will be the service where you get your entertainment. We were talking about it – you will not just see consoles and handhelds at this show next year, this show’s going to morph into other devices.”

Now Microsoft’s not stupid. It knows it has a perfectly serviceable console platform in Xbox, and the likelihood of it doing anything that legitimately threatens the Xbox 360′s rising appeal – or the potential success of the next-gen Xbox – is low. Still, there are a lot of people out there who might not buy a dedicated console but could be swayed to pick up a compact box that delivers not only gaming but HTPC functionality.

That blurring of the distinctions between console and computer – and, indeed, phone – all fit in with something the company has referred to as “three screens and a cloud”; gaming, desktop and mobile platforms all interlinked, your entertainment following you on the most appropriate device at any one time. Microsoft has also been readying its Kinect for Windows kit recently, promising a February launch for developers at least. Still, when the motion-sensing bar makes it to broad availability – we’re guessing at around the time Windows 8 hits PCs later in 2012 – it will bulldoze through another differentiator between 360 and the desktop.

Pricing will remain the big differentiator, at least for the moment. The X51 kicks off at $699, though that’s with a Core i3 processor; figure on spending $1,149 upwards if you want a Core i7 chip instead, and we’ve a feeling most hardcore gamers will. That’s enough to buy six Xbox 360 consoles with spare change left over, or one console, a Kinect and a whole catalog of games.

Still, consoles as we know them are gradually being squeezed, with capable and compact PCs at one side and the rise of casual gaming on affordable Smart TV set-top boxes at the other. Just as has been the case in mobile, with dedicated portable consoles losing out in favor to gaming smartphones and PMPs like Apple’s iPod touch, the center of our living room entertainment is also evolving. Alienware’s X51 isn’t going to kill the Xbox 360 and PS3 today, but it’s further evidence the old guard of gaming needs to step it up if they want to remain relevant tomorrow.

Content theft is not something we advocate at SlashGear. Like many news sites online, there are numerous “scraper sites” grabbing the content we produce and republishing it without permission; we understand how frustrating that can be. Yet, there are already tools to tackle content theft – like the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) – and which do so with the same mindfulness of due process that other laws in the US and abroad have been built upon.

Perhaps most frustrating is that neither the Stop Online Piracy Act nor the Protect IP Act would actually effectively address piracy in any way more effective than current tools. As Google and others have pointed out, those sharing or searching for illegal content could easily circumnavigate the limitations SOPA and PIPA would allow. Everybody else would be left to face the unnecessarily strict threat of censorship, with companies forced into monitoring users to ensure they didn’t upload anything remotely controversial.

Today’s tools may not be perfect, but blanket laws that threaten the free speech currently permitted on the internet are even more dangerous. The powers SOPA and PIPA would grant would not only mean sources of pirated content could be taken down without due process, but that any site daring to voice opinions not shared by big content companies, ISPs or the US government could also find itself taken offline before it had even had a chance to argue its case.

You can find out more about SOPA/PIPA in our plain English guide to the proposed acts, and details on how to contact your US Representative – or, if you are outside the US, how to make your voice heard too – at sopastrike.com/strike. There’s also more information at the Electronic Frontier Foundation.

At many large universities across the country now, classes are hooked up to the publishers directly already through student fees [tuition] and are able to access articles through the web instead of having to purchase an entire textbook. At the moment, teachers are not allowed to download and print these articles up, but they can tell students to head to the website to download PDF files for themselves. Should Apple make a move to simplify this process, it’d more than likely be that the teacher sends out an email with a link to the iTunes-connected store of choice which then allows you, the student, to download the correct article.

These articles will then be available for printing if you wish, but will be much more valuable to you on your iPad, for example, where you can work with them in a large variety of ways. You’ll be able to highlight, circle, copy, paste, and all the normal bigs, but you’ll also be able to work with videos, interactive panels – and have the whole thing read out loud to you if you’re on the bus and don’t want the iPad making you a target for theft, if you know what I mean. It’s doubtful, but I suppose PERHAPS possible that this is where the inexpensive iPad comes into play – that being the original iPad discounted to near-free status in the face of the upcoming third generation iPad 3, this the same situation as what’s happened with the iPhone 4S and the iPhone 3GS which is also now free on contract wherever fine phones are sold.

Publishers will be at essentially the same point they are now, working with professors to push text to students, but will have to adopt (eventually) a much different model for how they’re going to bring in the cash. Where before they were able to add it up and knock it out on the creation process through printers, now they’ll have to focus even more on the writers themselves. Perhaps Apple’s move into the textbook industry will be the end of the textbook format – let’s hope!

Note also that we’ll be LIVEBLOGGING at the event, that’s January 19th in the morning – so be here and bring your apples for the teacher!

Whether from underestimating quite how demanding the tablet segment would turn out to be – blame, admittedly, that can be shared among most of Apple’s rivals – or rushing a half-baked OS to market, the PlayBook fell embarrassingly flat. What RIM had perceived as a coy ecosystem boost, making email and calendar functionality dependent on a tethered BlackBerry smartphone, was unsurprisingly perceived as a significant failing. The overall polish of the iPad was conspicuous by its absence, and RIM’s app store felt sparsely populated in comparison to Apple’s.

The ensuing price cuts and eventual $485m write-off are common knowledge now. Yet, had RIM kept its head and stuck to its existing strengths, the PlayBook debacle could’ve gone significantly differently.

BlackBerry’s reputation has always been about fantastic text entry. The company’s smartphones may not have been the best-spec’d, or the most attractive, but those who spend their days punching out message after message quickly grew to appreciate the trademark BlackBerry keyboard. RIM itself showed some understanding of that USP, back with its first touchscreen phones, even if the implementation was patchy. The SurePress haptic keyboard technology in the original Storm ended up turning off more typists than finding favor, but it was at least a sign that RIM recognized what made it special in the increasingly crowded smartphone segment.

How, then, might the PlayBook had fared if it was not a tablet, but an ultraportable notebook instead? If you’re thinking Palm Folio then you’re on the right lines, perhaps, or more recently Motorola’s Lapdock range of ultraportable alternatives. Motorola hasn’t detailed sales of its various Lapdock options, so it’s hard to know whether they’ve been a runaway success or a slow-burner, but RIM arguably has more of a reputation for polished text entry than Moto every did.

RIM’s target audience was going to need some serious persuading to ditch its laptop, and the 7-inch PlayBook was never going to do that. The company argued that it offered a more spacious way to triage a bulging inbox and respond to messages, but it could have done better providing a decent-scale physical keyboard paired with all-day battery life and a larger display.

Where the Folio and Lapdock are reliant by design on a smartphone, RIM could have given its PlayBook laptop a brain of its own. In fact, a 360-degree hinge as Lenovo showed on its YOGA concept last week would’ve allowed the company to tick both touchscreen tablet and solid text-entry ability boxes. Even as a regular ultraportable, RIM could have positioned it as a legitimate alternative to a full-sized notebook, rather than a third device to carry alongside your PC and your smartphone.

Unfortunately, it seems RIM is still driving ahead with its tablet ambitions. According to leaked roadmap information earlier today, the company has an eye on two new PlayBook tablets for 2012, initially a 3G-enabled 7-inch model, followed at the tail-end of the year with a 10-inch version toting 4G LTE.

Is the situation unsalvageable? Not necessarily. Lenovo has already borrowed ASUS’ battery-packing keyboard dock idea from the Eee Pad Transformer, so RIM may as well strike out with its own homage too. It’ll undoubtedly be bulkier than a true ultraportable companion device, but likely still smaller than the regular notebook the company could legitimately say it replaces.

RIM needs to stop trying to mimic Apple wholesale and instead focus on adopting the company’s more successful strategies: playing to your strengths, knowing your audience, and launching devices that set out exactly what they can do and deliver on it in a polished manner. The enterprise juggernaut takes a long time to turn around; that gives RIM more time to reposition than, say, a consumer-centric company. On the flip-side, though, should its business clients finally abandon it, RIM may discover it’s all but impossible to coax them back into the fold.

Keynotes

While this is my first full Consumer Electronics Show visit, it’s not my first time to an event similar to this: namely Mobile World Congress, aka MWC, the european event centered around the mobile world, this event taking place in February again this year. At Mobile World Congress, CTIA (another similar event in the Spring), and others, the keynote speech is one of three primary places you’ll get news in-person at the greater event. When we sat in the audience this year, it was either myself, Cory Gunther, and Vincent Nguyen, or just myself and Cory who sat side-by-side and knocked out story after story on the speakings of the people standing on stage presenting as fast as humanly possible whilst retaining the amount of high-quality writing and photography we require.

As you’ll see through the portals listed above, it ended up being in quite a few cases me being the writer – typing most of the time as the people spoke sentences, then deciding when each section was starting and ending so as to create articles that flowed well and presented a main subject with relevant details surrounding it. That’s only part of the story, of course, with Cory then handling the post after I’d saved it, editing and fixing up the articles with photos and video either he or Vince captured on the spot, posting these stories then inside a few minutes after they’d really “broken.” After a keynote was complete, we each time literally got up and ran out of the arena we were in to get to the next one, again and again through the first couple of days of CES.

Meetings

Because we’ve got a record of turning hands-on experiences into lovely posts for all of you out there in consumerland. We speak with these manufacturers, carriers, and developers as far in advance as we can, then we’ve got scheduled meeting places where we get our own quiet look at the devices that require just a bit more attention than the ones we see out on the floor. That’s not to say that the items we just see out on the floor aren’t as high quality as the ones we see behind closed doors – of course not – but different groups want to get closer to certain users, like yourselves, so they invite us in to get up in there. Below you’ll see footage from an ASUS meeting we had, and above is your humble narrator guiding the future in a Mercedes concept demonstration we’ll have posted later this week.

The Floor

The dreaded death-race of a massive event that is The Floor. This is where we get all the real oddities, not just smaller groups, but everyone we can that did not have an event or a meeting scheduled that has an excellent device or service. You’ll find that many of our posts from the floor hit the airwaves later in the week and even continue to pop up early this week, as once we’re on the floor, it’s all about collecting before we run out of time in Las Vegas. Gotta go home sometime!

Side Events

There are fabulously excellent side events that, similar to meetings, allow us to get a closer look at devices without the hordes of CES attendees smashing down upon us. These events are why there often times aren’t devices for hands-on looks after keynote speeches during the week, as the amount of people that attend the keynotes would require masses of units to satisfy them all. This way, these events can spread out the love. One of these events is Pepcom, they each time naming their show in accordance with the event it surrounds, this time calling it “Digital Experience.” Late last year we attended another Pepcom by the name of Holiday Spectacular 2011, a good time had by all! There’s also an event with a similar format by the name of Showstoppers where this year we had an interview table where we sat down and spoke to some of the more interesting attendees of the events and had a chat with each of them about their products.

There are also less formal events, several of which we weren’t able to get to simply because of the massive bulk of material we had to cover, Verizon‘s “Off the Record” event, for example. Individual manufacturers will also have side events that are a mix of product presentation and party – Toshiba had a lovely one at the TAO early in the week. It’s important for a person in my position to get snacks at each of these events, as well as water or juice, simply because quite often there won’t be time to stop for a meal.

How one handles all of this

There’s no hardship in being here, and I wouldn’t dare complain about writing for a full week about technology, gadgets, and services that bring our planet further and further into a fun, digital age. That said, my body doesn’t have the easiest time getting up around 6AM, typing and running until 2AM, sleeping for 4 hours and doing it again the next day. We did get to eat a couple of meals though, and the ultimate savior was three things: granola bars in the morning, Gatorade throughout the day, and one tiny packet of Airborne. That stuff is miraculous.

Again, please feel free to ask any other questions you’ve got about what we / I did during the week, how and why we did it.

Details on just how embedded Skype will eventually be are in short supply, bar the fact that it’s in the works. Skype CEO Tony Bates confirmed the consolidation this past week, suggesting that it would follow on from a more typical standalone app as is available on other platforms. It’s no great surprise, though; back when Microsoft finalized its acquisition of Skype, it was keen to stress its vision of the “ubiquity of the Skype experience” with “communication across every device and every platform.”

Not all platforms are created equal, and when you have the keys to the toolbox you can do far more than tinker. Microsoft’s ambitions for Skype undoubtedly extend to differentiating Windows Phone with a service that has already accrued no small amount of traction. Adding VoIP as another option for voice calls is an obvious one, as is presence indication in a harmonized contacts list. Skype IM support could easily be built into Messenger, and Windows Phones bearing front-facing cameras – and crying out for a cross-platform video call app – are slowly growing in number.

There’s finessing your platform, however, and there’s ratcheting up the challenge until it’s not just an iPhone-threat but a real game-changer. VoIP has always been the service carriers have feared, a way of bypassing their cost structures around local, national and international calls, and instead shifting to a world where distance is all but irrelevant and an hour’s talk is or a matter of cents or even free.

For it to work, though, it needs a tipping point in users. Try to figure which of your friends are on Qik, which on Fring, which on any of the other would-be VoIP challengers, and it soon seems a whole lot less trouble to just make a regular phone call. Skype, though, already has the userbase; now it just needs a concerted effort to build it into a platform that makes saving money with VoIP transparent.

As a user, I don’t want to have to figure the relative costs of traditional cell calls versus VoIP; I just want to hit dial. If I tell my Windows Phone that I want to make the cheapest voice calls possible, I need it to automatically figure out which times to use Skype – and whether over WiFi or packet-data – and which time to dip into whatever bundle of voice minutes I might have left. All or nothing doesn’t help me – is a free VoIP call that over a paid data connection better value than a cellular voice call, or worse? – what I need is a handset that can figure that out for me.

If Microsoft could fathom that, instill Windows Phone with the sense to not only suckle at the dumb pipe but to do so with an eye on moderation not gluttony, it would offer a genuinely different option in the smartphone market. More than that, it would open the door to a true alternative to the carriers of today. Ex-Googler and current Mozilla Labs design chief Kevin Fox suggested just that last year, pointing to Microsoft’s acquisition of Skype and – at the time fledgling – work with Nokia, and pondering whether the big software company had a big soft carrier plan in the pipeline:

“If over half of a soft carrier’s airtime minutes were carried over Wi-Fi rather than a leased cellular network, that carrier could beat a traditional mobile carrier on price even if the traditional carrier doubled their costs when they leased access to the soft carrier, and for every customer who only has 3G access there’s another who has almost exclusively Wi-Fi access, and over time the scales continue to tip toward the latter, steadily lowering soft-carrier costs. Rates could either be flat regardless of transport, averaging out the benefit to all customers, or discounts could be given to those who use Wi-Fi more often.”

Microsoft would do well to examine the mistakes and pitfalls of those which have gone before it, though; it isn’t the first big name in tech to consider challenging the carriers. Google’s original Nexus concept was a smartphone – Android-based, naturally – free of operator subsidy and the implicit ties a subsidy creates. Instead, the networks would be relegated to pipes, simple conduits for VoIP and the like, with users picking the phone of their dreams and then throwing service into the cart almost as an afterthought.

In actual fact, the Nexus project was – when viewed as a challenge to the domineering carriers – an abject failure. Soon Google’s “phone comes first” scheme was nothing more than a SIM-free Nexus One on sale with a hefty $500+ price tag online, while most went either to AT&T or T-Mobile USA to pay a more palatable $200. Google redressed the Nexus idea as a hardware showcase, focusing on herding its Android OEM partners in whichever direction Andy Rubin & Co. decided was best.

Could Microsoft, and Skype, and Nokia, do things differently? Skype certainly has the brand recognition Google Voice lacks, and both Nokia and Microsoft are certainly desperate enough to consider as wholesale a shake-up of the mobile market as possible to give them each room to flourish. Google arguably never really needed to do away with carriers, its interest was always getting Android – and mobile advertising – into the hands of as many customers as possible. If that means a dozen slightly different phones from a half-dozen vendors on each of the main carriers, then so be it.

Microsoft and Nokia lack that flexibility. The pair have already been struggling to gain mindshare in the all-important retail environment, reportedly digging deep into a $200m purse or thereabouts to fund the AT&T Lumia 900 release. A fair chunk of that cash will grease the palms of retail staff, encouraging them to push the new Windows Phone rather than its Android or iOS counterparts. At some point, though, launching each new handset on a bed of hundred dollar bills becomes counterproductive.

What Microsoft needs is a big WiFi backbone and an eager, perhaps mildly desperate carrier to deliver fall-back. T-Mobile USA would seem an obvious choice, left floundering in the aftermath of the AT&T deal collapse. Instead of coaxing carrier showfloor time for each and every launch, Microsoft could push Windows Phones and its companion soft carrier network in its own retail locations, as well as on Xbox LIVE and through Windows computers. That direct marketing would be talking to arguably the most likely users, too: those for whom Windows Phone’s PC and Xbox integration might strike a chord.

It’d take guts, and investment, and a fair amount of madness to do, but the alternative is watching Apple and Google eat up every last scrap in the mobile ecosystem. Skype alone can’t save Windows Phone, but it could certainly prove the key that unlocks Microsoft’s mobile future.

But it wasn’t just LG. Vizio showed off an ultra-widescreen set that many film buffs were happy to see, and the sheer number of Smart TVs featuring built-in apps, integration with DVRs, and countless other features was dizzying. There were even the giant televisions on display for those who have large rooms and want to impress friends.

Check our all the CES 2012 Smart TVs here

All that has made me wonder: how will Apple, a company that is reportedly working on a new television to best them all, actually achieve its goal of changing customer perceptions about TVs?

The way I see it, just about every company is providing what Apple will reportedly offer in its own HDTVs. We already have extremely well-designed sets, thin televisions that look like a picture frame hanging on the wall, and TVs featuring all the apps you would seemingly want. What’s more, they all come in at prices that, if history is to be our guide, Apple likely won’t even come close to matching.

Furthermore, I just don’t see any technologies out there that Apple could stake claim to. If the company offers up an OLED set, LG will respond with one of its own. If it only sells 4K televisions, the competition will have already put some out.

Unfortunately for Apple, the television market might be one place where it really was too late to the game.

Looking back, being late to the game is something that Apple hasn’t suffered all that often. In fact, its most successful products, the iPod, the iPhone, and the iPad, helped set off entire new product ideas. In the television space, however, there’s little chance of the iPhone maker having a chance to do that.

Of course, there will undoubtedly be Apple apologists that disagree. They’ll argue that Apple’s integration of the App Store and iCloud will be enough for the company to attract customers away from competing sets. They’ll also say that Apple’s branding always wins out.

Admittedly, it’s hard to argue with that. And even if Apple launches a television with technologies we’ve already seen, there’s a good chance the set will still sell well.

But I think it’s time we all acknowledge that Apple isn’t the only company in the industry that has, or is willing to, take chances. Some of the top TV vendors in the world are quite Apple-like in their product presentations. And this year, I think we’re going to see that quite clearly.

Watch out, Apple. You might just have more TV competition than you think.

Neither A&T nor Nokia would be drawn on exactly how much the Lumia 900 will cost when it eventually goes on sale. Going by previous LTE smartphones, however, $199.99 with a new, two-year agreement and mandatory 4G data plan would on the fact of it seem most likely.

Still, AT&T is working hard to push LTE down through the price range. The Pantech Burst and Samsung Exhilarate didn’t exactly grab attention like the Lumia did, but AT&T has promised them for $50 apiece (again, with contract). 2012 may well end up being the year for relatively affordable LTE devices after all.

Will any of those be bearing the Nokia logo, however? The Finnish company has been ambitious with its Lumia 800 pricing in Europe, undercutting Android and iOS rivals and negotiating decent subsidies with networks to make the Windows Phone more affordable. As an exclusive on AT&T, however – something both companies have repeated ad-nauseum – there’s always the suspicion that the carrier will use that rarity to milk subscribers of a little extra cash.

That would potentially be death to Nokia’s chances in the US market, however. It may still be the number one mobile phone company in the world, but Nokia’s standing in the US is embryonic at best; if AT&T slaps a $200 tag on the Lumia 900 it’ll lose a huge chunk of potential audience who might be willing to give Windows Phone a punt. Offer it for $100, however, and all of a sudden there’s a lot more appeal. Do the unthinkable and opt for free-on-contract – just as the 800 is sold in many European countries – and you could have a real success on your hands.

Nokia has long made a point of highlighting its supply chain and experience in producing hardware, which combine to help the company drive down prices. Stephen Elop has even recently namechecked that as a reason why selling off its smartphone division to Microsoft simply wouldn’t make sense.

Now it’s time for Nokia to put its potency to work. It has one chance to storm the US market and convince analysts, investors, geeks and consumers that it has caught up with its rivals, and a bulging marketing budget isn’t enough, on its own, to do that. Price the AT&T Lumia 900 right, and Nokia could take its first step on a comeback campaign it’s been paying lip-service to for months.

Nokia Lumia 900 hands-on:

Whatever the year, it’s clear that Sony will eventually launch a new console. Microsoft will do the same. And Nintendo is already planning to do so in the coming months.

But all this talk of consoles has me thinking: do we really need more hardware?

The fact is, we’re inching closer to the day where hardware connected to our televisions will be a thing of the past. Samsung and DirecTV at CES this week announced a “boxless” solution that lets users have the full DVR experience on their 2012 Smart TV without actually needing to hook the device up to the set. There’s talk of Apple wanting to include apps, iCloud, and other features into its own television.

And all that fails to mention we have downloadable games already available to us both on the PC and on game consoles. We’ve already come to the point of being able to enjoy content without being required to have a set-top box to do it.

So, how important will consoles be in, say, 2014 or 2015? Will broadband speeds be fast enough to accommodate downloading a big game, like Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3? Will televisions come with application stores in them to allow us to access games without requiring that middleman?

It’s certainly a possibility. But there’s one major issue standing in the way of us finally detaching ourselves from the console life support: the hardware companies themselves.

Like it or not, Microsoft, Nintendo, and Sony all rely heavily upon hardware to make their businesses as big as they are. And there’s a good chance that they will be the first companies to denounce ideas of eliminating hardware and getting direct access to titles from game makers.

Microsoft and Sony might be especially outspoken about such a plan. Those companies have not done nearly as good of a job as Nintendo delivering first-party content consumers actually want to play. If television makers and game developers sync up, there’s a solid chance those companies’ game divisions will be marginalized, to say the least.

As for us? Well, we can only hope to get the best experience, regardless of whether that comes via consoles or downloadable content. But I suspect the latter will deliver a better experience at some point in the future.

Who’s with me?

The Air stunned users and wallets in equal measure in its first generation, but after its 2010 redesign – and with its significantly reduced price tag – it quickly became the ultraportable to beat. What started as an underpowered and overpriced novelty developed into a legitimate mobile companion, with enough grunt to do some light photo and video editing while not over-stressing your rucksack.

Now, I’m not saying Apple got everything right with the MacBook Air. Battery life from the notebook struggles to achieve Apple’s lofty claims, in my experience, and the company’s refusal to adopt USB 3.0 – plumping instead for Thunderbolt – would be a lot easier to stomach if there were more than a couple of accessories around to actually use the port.

But one of the big things the Air has going for it is that it did the ultrabook thing first. Apple may not use the term, and Intel tends to get evasive when asked whether it considers the smallest MacBook to fall into the category, but it’s inevitably become the benchmark for PC rivals.

Unfortunately most of them appear to have fallen into the obvious trap: make a Windows-based Air. Slimline dimensions, tapered edges, chiclet keyboards… Apple didn’t invent any of them, but glance at most of the aluminum-bodied ultrabooks launched this past week and it’s tough not to mentally compare it to the Air’s fifteen month old design.

Thinking differently was tough to find. Dell’s XPS 13 may have been comparatively late to the ultrabook market, but it at least threw some carbon-fiber at the design and made a good argument for it being there. The company has been able to use decent strength Core i7 processors, Dell claims, as carbon-fiber is better at shedding heat than aluminum is.

Slick, samey hardware alone isn’t enough, however. Part of the Air’s appeal is that only Apple’s machines get OS X: if you want the software, you have to buy the hardware. Windows machines don’t have the same advantage, and right now they’re generally all taking the same route: make an Air clone of some description and shout as loudly as possible

I’d love to see more competition in the ultraportable segment, but creating copy’n'paste Apple clones isn’t the way to do it. Rather than aping the MacBook Air, PC vendors need to focus on finding their own unique identify. Give me a reason to really, really want your product, rather than offering me photofit Windows alternative in the hope I’m not enamored of OS X.

As is so often the case, the really unique designs were mere concepts – Intel’s own Nikiski, for instance, with its full-width transparent touchpad – at least trying something different, something dots Apple hasn’t yet joined up. Nikiski is interesting not so much for its eye-catching hardware, but for the use possibilities it opens up when you consider Intel’s other ultrabook technologies. For instance, how will day-long battery life and a visible-when-closed display work with Intel SmartConnect, which periodically wakes your notebook and refreshes your email, Twitter, Facebook and other messages?

Perhaps it’s expecting too much for manufacturers to address such questions today, though they’ve had years to rise to the challenge Apple represents. With fading PC sales – while MacBooks fly out of Apple Stores – time is running short to impress a gimmick-weary, cash-wary public. Based on what we’ve seen at CES this week, I’m still not convinced this latest litter of ultrabooks will be enough.

Convinced by Ultrabooks? Holding out for a MacBook Air instead? Let us know in the SlashGear poll:

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