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.

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.

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.

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.

“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.

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.

[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.

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.

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.

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:

[poll id="24"]

[Image credit: Lassi Kurkijärvi]

We were heading into Target the other day and he asked for a toy. I don’t oblige him every time, I like to keep it random and special. This time, I said yes. He wanted a dump truck. A big dump truck. A big pink dump truck.

That’s kind of awesome. I would have loved to buy him a big, pink dump truck, but guess what? Target doesn’t sell any. They have blue. They have green. They have a bunch of different colors and sizes. But no pink.

Let’s get the stereotypes out of the way now. It would be ignorant to say there is not a stigma associated with pink and masculinity, especially in our country, and even more down here in Texas, where we live. Pink is for girls. Boys don’t wear or own pink. There’s no question of what a boy with pink toys ‘means,’ because it just isn’t done. You can’t buy toys that interest my boy in the color pink.

It seems to me this is among the more stupid of all our gender-based stereotypes. Pink is a color. It’s an unsaturated shade of red. It’s pretty. It’s one of my favorite colors, too. Would you rather see the sky when it’s royal blue, or at sunrise, when it’s streaked with orange and luscious pink? Do you want your steak brown and grey, or moist and pink? When Apple released the iPod mini in a variety of hues, I went straight for the pink one. I still have it, even though it doesn’t work. For that device, it was an awesome color.

I don’t care how pink was saddled with this stigma. It’s stupid. It’s just a color. It would be equally ridiculous if we associated specific musical notes with gender. Sorry, your daughter can’t play an E above Middle C on the piano. That note is only for boys. Sorry, your son isn’t allowed to have hot fudge. Hot fudge is for girls. Boys eat caramel sauce. For my son, at least, that caramel sauce will have to be served on strawberry ice cream, because when we go to our favorite scoop shop, that’s the only flavor he’ll tolerate.

Gadget makers often release gadgets in lovely shades of pink, almost invariably targeted at women. I’ve long wrestled with how I feel about that. On the one hand, it is odd to market a device to one gender or the other based on color. On the other, if people want to buy a pink television, then somebody should make a pink television. If market research shows that women are not buying television sets, but women love buying things in the color pink, then it would be good strategy to make a pink television. I’m not sure if this is what the market research actually says, but based on the preponderance of pink aimed at female buyers, there must be some statistics to back up this idea.

Here’s where I disclose that in my day job I work for Samsung. But I also see phones from other companies. I remember one company released a phone in a gorgeous shade of purple. It wasn’t explicitly called a woman’s phone, but most of the marketing seemed headed in that direction. But I loved that color. I wanted a phone in that color. So why didn’t I buy that phone? Well, it’s not just because I work for a major competitor. It’s because the phone didn’t have all the features and specs I desire.

I think the answer to this problem is not to stop making and marketing pink devices aimed at women. The answer is to start making and marketing more pink devices aimed at men. Or, more generally, make pink devices that everyone will like. Treat pink like the appealing color that it is, and not some super-inflated symbol of gender and sexuality.

I know it won’t work. If all the laptops in the world were painted pink, there are too many people who simply would not own a laptop, no matter the inconvenience that causes them. The pink devices will not sell as well. Not for a while.

It is also difficult to make gadgets in a variety of colors. It causes problems at every step of the retail chain. The unpopular colors die out very quickly, or are left to rot on shelves. It would be hard to imagine a gadget maker, with profits and a board of directors at the top of its hive mind, investing in a style choice for the benefit of changing the perception of society. That’s not the job of the manufacturer. The manufacturer should provide what the customer wants in the best way possible. It is rare that a manufacturer can dictate taste in such an extreme way.

But if your goal is to change perceptions — and that is my goal here — the way to do that is not to stop selling pink gadgets to women. You need to remove the gender from the equation altogether and start selling pink gadgets to men. I would buy, and in 10 years when my son is ready for his first cell phone, I can make a guess as to which color he’d choose. I just hope that the masculine army of blues and reds and brown and drab does not pummel the beauty out of him before we get there.

For Netflix, a Yahoo acquisition could allow management to finally take a reprieve from the barrage of criticism they’ve been facing over the last several months.

From taking heat for raising prices 60 percent on DVD-by-mail and streaming customers to trying to spin-off its rental business before quickly backtracking, Netflix management has done little to make its case that it deserves to be running the company.

Yahoo, meanwhile, seems to have an insatiable desire to acquire a prominent streaming-video provider. Last year, the company was reportedly the first to approach Hulu about acquiring that company before talks broke down. Now that it’s reportedly considering buying Netflix, it appears it has some big plans for streaming video.

But let’s not forget which company is going after Netflix. Yahoo isn’t the online giant that it once was. Sure, it has a major presence on the Web and it has the cash to back up just about any decision it makes, but it’s on the decline. And the chances of it reversing its tailspin anytime soon seems quite unlikely.

Let’s keep in mind that over the last several months, Yahoo has let its CEO go over bad performance, reportedly fielded numerous buyout offers, and all the while, failed to make a deal happen. What’s worse, all the bids that supposedly crossed the board of directors table reportedly did little to maximize the company’s potential.

So, I’m not quite sure how Netflix can change that. It’s a company that, like Yahoo, is on the decline. Yahoo might give it a bit more of an online presence, but in the hardware space, I don’t quite see the upside for Netflix.

At the end of the day, though, I think it’s the Netflix user that loses the most in this scenario. I can’t find a single instance in recent years where Yahoo has acquired a company and actually improved the experience of using its products. Too often, the online company acquires a firm, lets it operate as-is for a little while, and then tries too hard to integrate it into its services, thus damaging its market appeal. To think that wouldn’t happen with Netflix would be a mistake.

Suffice it to say I just don’t think Yahoo buying Netflix is a good idea for any party. Yahoo would find itself with a streaming company that has lost its footing. Netflix would find itself with an online firm that has forgotten what it takes to be successful on the Web. And users would lose Netflix as they know it today.

Leave Netflix alone, Yahoo. It’s better for all of us.

[Image credit: Steve Jacobsen]

I’m all for convenience. I don’t wash my clothes by hand, or perform my own complicated single-set plays for evening entertainment instead of turning on the TV. If I need to travel the country, I’ll use a train or a car instead of channeling my inner Taylor Lautner and loping across great distances like a wolf. The common factor across each of those devices is that they can do their tasks better than I can in other, more manual ways.

That’s not the case with pod coffee: they’re selling you convenience, yes, but you’re also agreeing to a compromise on taste. Sure, they’re probably better than a spoonful of instant dunked into boiling water, certainly less stomach-churning than those cappuccino-in-a-sachet where the foam is made by bicarb. But, for all the hyperbole and George Clooney, they’re not great coffee.

Hang around any of the coffee boards online and you’ll soon come across the rule of fifteens. Green, unfrosted coffee beans stay good for about fifteen months. Roasted, whole beans are probably good for about fifteen days. Once you grind them, you’ve got fifteen minutes before the all-important oils – the things that give you the true taste, the real crema, the complexity of properly prepared coffee – are evaporated and wasted. The guy in the cafe who scoops you out a couple of spoonfuls of preground coffee when you ask for decaf? He’s serving you stale coffee.

When was the coffee in your Senseo pad, or your Nespresso capsule, or your Keurig K-Cup roasted and ground? There’s a best-before date on the packet, yes, but that’s going to give the manufacturer the broadest possible window to sell each pod. Figure on 15 minutes, and the pods would be out of date before they’d even reached their packaging.

Here’s the thing: it really takes very little effort to get a better cup of coffee than a pod machine. You don’t even have to spend $2,000 on a huge, shiny Italian espresso machine. Here are my top three alternatives to pod coffee, each cheaper and practically as easy the machine you might covet for your counter.

Clever Coffee Dripper

Drip coffee has been around for a long time, and the plastic cones that sit on top of a cup can be picked up for a couple of dollars. Spend $15, however, and you can get a whole lot more control over the flavor of your morning brew. Shaped like an oversized cone, the Clever Coffee Dripper takes a standard paper filter (I like to rinse it at least once, preferably in the cone and with boiling water, to wash away any lingering “papery” taste) but holds the brew until you sit the whole thing on top of your mug.

A nifty little valve in the base is opened by the mug and lets the coffee run out. If you’ve ever dismissed drip coffee because it’s not sufficiently potent for your tastes, the Clever Coffee Dripper allows you to leave the brew sitting for as long as you like, getting stronger all the time. Plus clean-up is simple: dump the filter into the trash, give the cone a rinse and you’re done.

AeroPress

Not quite filter, not quite espresso, but special in its own way: the AeroPress looks like a bovine-scale syringe but actually lets you create concentrated – and delicious – coffee for $25. Screw in an (included) paper filter at one end, pour coffee and boiling water into the other, stir, and then push through the inner tube, forcing the brew into your cup.

The end result can be diluted with more water, used as a concentrate for cooking, chilled for iced coffee or just enjoyed as a pseudo-espresso. The sturdy plastic means you can drop the AeroPress into a suitcase when you’re traveling, too. When you’re finished, ditch the old coffee and the filter into the trash, rinse the tube through with water and that’s it.

French Press

Pod coffee makes plenty of speed boasts, but if you’re making drinks for a few people the one-at-a-time process can make serving staggered. A French Press (aka press pot or cafetiere) serves multiple people at the same time, and like the Clever Coffee Dripper you can experiment with how long you leave the coffee in contact with the water (and thus the final taste and strength).

Preparation is easy: drop in the coffee, pour over water, give a quick stir and then wait four minutes or so before plunging. Clean-up can be a little more fiddly than with either of the other two methods, though it’s easier if you pick a dishwasher-safe model.

The important thing with all three of these methods is to use fresh beans. You might get lucky and find a roaster nearby – remember, the “best before” date on that coffee in huge hoppers in the supermarket doesn’t tell you anything; what you really want to know is when the beans were roasted – but if not there are plenty of good places online to order coffee and have it shipped just a day or two after it comes out the roaster.

If you’re in the US, Intelligentsia is a good place to start, while Hasbean in the UK has some great choices. They’re certainly not the only options; feel free to speak up in the comments if you have a favorite roaster or vendor.

When you’ve got your beans, then you need to grind them. A proper espresso machine demands a burr grinder – crunching beans between carefully balanced burrs makes sure they’re suitably fine and consistent – but any of the three methods above can be paired with a simple blade grinder. You can grab one of those for under $20.

Rather than forcing you to pick from vaguely-titled “Colombian” or “Italian Roast” pods, any decent roaster will be able to tell you not only about the various flavors but where their coffee comes from, the growing and drying process, how they decided to roast the raw beans in order to bring out the best of them. You want more flavor? Throw in some syrup. Unlike with pods, where you’re basically limited to whatever taste options the manufacturer decides will suit the mass market, going straight to beans gives a far broader range to choose from.

I know the appeal of a shiny new gadget for the kitchen. The choice of Tassimo, Keurig, Senseo and other machines is huge, and the manufacturers have certainly been quick to make them glossy and attractive. My geek-lust can certainly kick in over them, even though I know the actual coffee they produce is underwhelming.

If you can resist, though; if you can channel your fetish for buttons and automation into something else – something where automation actually adds an advantage – then your taste buds will thank you. Your wallet may thank you as well: those pods, many of which are proprietary, add up too. Convenience has its place, but sometimes you lose much more than you gain.

On Sunday, I’m going to fly from Dallas to Las Vegas. I’m not going to have time to check into my hotel, because I have to go directly to my first meeting. I’ll be sitting in meetings for at least 8 hours. The next four days, I’ll wake up at 8AM and start working. I won’t stop until late into the evening. On many nights, I won’t get back to my hotel room until after midnight.

I’ll be at the Consumer Electronics Show, of course. The Super Bowl of gadgets. Except it lasts for days and days, and there is no football, just commercials. It’s so huge that it takes place not only at the Las Vegas Convention Center, but also the Hilton next door, and the Sands convention center connected to the Venetian hotel. A friend wore a pedometer at the show one year and discovered that she walked 4-6 miles a day, every day.

Sounds grueling, right? Hardly. Let me fill in the blanks.

My first meeting is with a good friend and drinking buddy. Every subsequent meeting I have will be with technology journalists, analysts, and other industry professionals. These are people who are interested in the exact same thing I’m interested in. We’ll have plenty to talk about, on professional and personal levels. It’s not like going to the office, it’s more like hanging out in a college dorm, arguing politics over pizza until late in the night. But instead of pizza, it’s all about gadgets.

My day job, and the sponsor of my trip, is with Samsung. My meetings will involve talking about Samsung products and showing off the coolest stuff we have. I’ll be carrying around a bag full of awesome gadgets throughout the show. During the meetings, we’ll play. There will be questions, photographs, hands-on videos. But mostly, we’ll play.

At night, we’ll head to corporate and PR sponsored events. These are usually nice meals, parties at night clubs, or mini trade shows with free alcohol and plenty of fried food. Since CES always happens after New Year’s, usually we’ll hear anecdotes from the club workers about how Britney Spears or Paris Hilton passed out in this VIP room, or threw up in that elevated bathtub. I’ll go to the most exclusive clubs in Vegas, the places that wouldn’t let me in wearing the same outfit a week later. There will be music, dancing, free pens and baseball caps, and more time hanging out with some of my favorite people in the world.

I love my job. I loved my job when I was a journalist. I love it now that I’m on the corporate side. If you’re working at your cubicle, or from the cab of your truck, or from anywhere that does not send you on an all-expense paid trip to Las Vegas once a year, I hope you see I’m not trying to brag. I appreciate my job and the opportunities it gives me. I work hard at it, and I worked hard to get here. I put in the hours. I will never complain about it. I know exactly how lucky I am.

I wish everyone in my business were so self aware. I’ve seen column after column on other technology Web sites complaining about having to make the trek to CES. Some folks even revel in the fact that they have never attended the show, all the while dismissing what’s there, as if they have any idea.

Is CES a dying animal? No way. Microsoft is scaling back. Other companies have stopped exhibiting at trade shows, preferring their own, invariably more exclusive corporate events. There is certainly a time and a place for that strategy, but CES serves a definite purpose.

First, it’s a mile marker for our industry. It’s a way to stop after the holidays, look around, and try to figure out where this giant ship is sailing. It’s a way to spot icebergs and jet streams.

The Consumer Electronics Association, the group that runs CES, exists to promote consumer electronics. No trade show in existence does a better job promoting its category than CES. Sure, you may have read about the adult entertainment show that used to run concurrently with CES. But have you heard of the pizza maker’s trade show in Las Vegas? Have you seen coverage of the Construction Expo that happens once every 3 years? In fact, can you name any other major trade show convention that is covered by all major TV networks, all forms of print and online publications, and supports an entire category of bloggers and Web sites? Of course not. This isn’t just a testimony to the popularity of technology. It’s a testament to the hard work and sheer spectacle of CEA at CES.

Second, CES lets in the little guy. At some point during the show, all journalists run out of steam and decide to walk the floor. Everybody wants to find the little guy, the cool products hidden in the back of the convention center. I’ve played video games with my mind. I’ve watched movies that smell. I’ve watched body painting and drag racing and all sorts of fascinating pageantry.

The weirdest thing about technology journalists is that many of them think they have hard jobs. They think that CES is difficult. They complain about the walking, the long nights, the bad food (okay, too much fried, not enough fresh). If you follow tech journalists on Twitter, be prepared for a full week of complaining about flight delays, poorly designed airports, hotel errors, shuttle delays, blistered feet, missed meetings, and more.

Feel free to tell any and all of them where they can stick it.

I’ve never had a true manual labor job, but I have had jobs that were actually difficult. Tedious jobs that were repetitive and dull. Retail jobs over the holiday time. I worked 12 hour days as a teacher in inner-city schools. My students were awesome, and they were the reason I woke up every day. But there was endless paperwork, long hours, a complete lack of appreciation on every level, and heartbreak. Try grading 200 papers in a weekend and tell me how difficult CES can be. Try calling a single working parent to tell them their child would be expelled for a stupid rule infraction, then tell me how much you hate going to parties every single night.

Or don’t. Enjoy it. Love it. Have a great time. If you’re so jaded that you really hate the Consumer Electronics Show, you probably need a new career. But I warn you, you’re going to be very disappointed with what you find. There are very few openings for people with expertise in playing with gadgets, drinking heavily, and hanging with friends.

But in recent weeks, it’s becoming clear that the industry’s most important event might not be so important any longer. Just this week, Verizon said that its CEO Lowell McAdam won’t be making an appearance at a keynote he was expected to attend.

That news follows Microsoft admission that this year’s CES will be its last. Meanwhile, Apple has once again balked at showing up at CES, leaving some of the most prominent companies in the business turning their backs on the show.

Those troubles have prompted some to speculate on the future of CES. Will it survive? Is the business model of allowing any and all consumer electronics companies to attend, as well as well over 100,000 people really the best move? Can CES attract other large companies to make up for those that have left, or are at least considering leaving?

I have a better question: who really cares?

Look, I’m as guilty as anyone else for loving all the excitement surrounding CES. We get our first looks at some of the latest and greatest ideas tech companies have to offer, and along the way, we can decide if any of those products are something we’re going to buy.

But in recent years, CES has become bloated. Too many companies attend the event, and in far too many cases, what they show off isn’t all that impressive. What’s worse, they’re all vying for limited attention, and more often than not, they get lost in the shuffle. For most companies, the upside of going to CES is not all that great.

The show’s Microsoft loss is huge. Microsoft was a staunch supporter of the event for years, and now that it’s leaving, what other big company can really lead the charge to help it attract attention?

Apple certainly won’t line up for that duty and considering Google seems so against being viewed as a hardware maker, it’s unlikely the search giant will carry the banner either. And as much as I’ve tried, I can’t think of another top newsmaker that would hold a keynote address that the vast majority of consumers would care about.

CES is in trouble. And although I believe it’ll hold on for at least the next few years, unless some drastic changes are made, I’m not sure it can survive beyond that.

But then again, who cares? The show is fun, but if we lose it and the countless other shows the industry has succeed because of it, will we really be missing out? I don’t think so.

“We think some of this has already been started with RIM likely agreeing to license Blackberry 10 to Samsung, HTC, and possibly others.This would help create a critical mass for the ecosystem and maintain RIM’s monthly service revenue; however, it puts more pressure on the hardware business in the short term. Longer term, it possibly gets people hooked on the RIM ecosystem and may in fact allow them to sell more BB 10 handsets (if they are able to create compelling handsets)” Peter Misek, analyst, Jefferies & Co.

Unfortunately, just as was the case when the rumors surged previously, it’s hard to see where BB10 might slot into either Samsung or HTC’s ranges. Note, Misek says RIM is “likely agreeing” to a licensing deal, not that either rival has expressed much interest. Samsung has plenty on its plate already, with Microsoft chasing it for more Windows Phone motivation and Android devices flying off shelves; it even has to spend some time on its own homegrown platform, bada, which has proved strangely fireproof among the 2011 OS cull.

HTC, meanwhile, is increasingly struggling to find its place on shelves, with last year’s less-than-successful scattergun approach – a different handset for just about everybody – apparently prompting a rethink at HQ. The “Quietly Brilliant” strategy this year is a few great devices, we’re told, rather than a whole lot of mediocre ones, and the combination of Android and Windows Phone is likely enough to satisfy that remit without BB10 getting a look-in.

Who’s left? Microsoft and Nokia may be embroiled in their own persistent rumors of smartphone divisions changing hands and clandestine CEO ninjas inveigling the Finns and breaking them down from the inside, but there’s still been time for suggestions that the pair has looked curiously at RIM too. Any appeal for Microsoft, though, is likely to be a wholesale acquisition – buying its way back into the enterprise market share it used to part-dominate with Windows Mobile – rather than using software someone else controls.

In the meantime, RIM’s co-chairs need to bite the bullet and step back, allow in an independent chairperson if only to temporarily placate the investors. You can understand the reluctance: Mike Lazaridis isn’t just the co-chair and co-CEO, he’s RIM’s founder. I’d wager there’s a copy of the Steve Jobs biography on his nightstand, the pages documenting Steve’s return to floundering Apple and how he turned it around against the odds the most thumbed of all.

Sticking to your guns, fighting the naysayers and rescuing a situation everyone else had given up on is a common trope in the media. That’s reasonably straightforward if you’re a plucky boxer down on his luck: spend a few weeks in the gym with a motivating soundtrack of soft rock and you might just make good in the ring. It’s not so straightforward when you’re trying to convince the buying public and an increasingly dissatisfied enterprise to stick with your phones in the face of the all-conquering iPhone and a metric ton of Android devices. You can put the Rocky theme on repeat for as long as you like, but not giving customers new phones until the end of the year isn’t a way to turn around your bottom line today.

There’s anecdotal evidence that enterprise customers haven’t given up on BlackBerry, if only because of the hassle involved in transitioning to a different system, and we’ll get a chance to see where RIM is up to at Mobile World Congress next month.  Could a little more communication from Lazaridis and Balsillie about BB10′s true progress be enough to tide those customers over the next few difficult quarters? It’s not ideal, but it’s potentially less platform-cannibalizing than, say, licensing out BBM to rivals or becoming nothing more than a software house dependent on per-handset fees. With the knives out, RIM needs to stick to its strengths and resist the temptation for quick fix deals. Desperation is an effective motivator but often produces lousy long-term results.

It’s important to support the person up front because in times of stress and adversity, the little authority you’ve invested in that person will pay off. When that person tells you to leave the building immediately, you’ll do it. You won’t ask questions until you smell the gas leak. In a way, this is like a military command, but without all the imminent peril and killing and stuff. It’s about trust. I put my trust in the person who is leading the group from the front. At best, things go very well. At worst, nobody gets hurt, and it’s all over soon.

When a flight attendant tells you to turn off your cell phone, just do it and don’t complain about it. Airports and air travel are a sore point for me on Twitter and other social networks. It used to be people complained about flight delays. Then they complained about the airport gates. Once, a friend complained that his windshield was cracked by an errant pebble kicked up by a truck in traffic on the way to the airport. From where was he tweeting? Now, the complaints are all about turning off your phone, your laptop, your iTouch, your tablet, and all the other junk you carry with you.

I’m sick of it. I couldn’t care less.

I know, you’re right. Phones probably don’t crash airplanes. Okay, it’s debatable what is the effect of a couple hundred cell phones scrounging for service as the plane tries to catch air. It may cause interference, but a cell phone has never been pegged as the lone culprit in an airline disaster. And if the wireless radio in your cell phone probably won’t bring down the plane, certainly the slight trickle of juice through your Kindle won’t hurt anything.

I don’t care. Turn it off. Turn it all off. And don’t complain about it.

Want to know why you should turn it off? Because the flight attendant told you to, and he or she asked nicely. Try to argue with that. You can’t. If you do, you’re just a jerk. You’re not in charge of the airline. You’re not a pilot or a flight attendant (and if you are, I’m betting you’re agreeing with me anyway). I don’t care if you’re an electrical engineer specializing in RF interference. If someone asks you nicely to turn off your gadgets, and makes it clear that your refusal will seriously inconvenience the people around you, just do it. Stop wasting time.

If you want to argue this policy, do it. Go to your congressperson and voice your concerns. You’d be amazed how few people have to call a congressional office before they start taking the complaints very seriously. If that doesn’t work, complain to the FAA. Complain to the airlines. Then, start taking the train. Take a greyhound bus. Chances are, they have better Wi-Fi and more power outlets anyway.

By the time you get on the plane, you’ve already lost the argument. It would be like walking into an Outback Steakhouse and yelling at the waiter because the beef is not locally grass fed. It’s too late. You knew it was Outback Steakhouse. Enjoy your Bloomin’ Onion and shut your trap.

Partially, this argument is about respecting the limited authority of the flight attendant. I’ve never honestly seen a flight attendant abuse his or her authority. If anything, I wish they would flex a little more authority. Time to start harassing the idiots who can’t figure out how to stow a piece of luggage WHEELS FIRST on the LEFT SIDE OF THE PLANE! Is it so hard? Instead, I have to check my bags or pay extra to make sure I can get on the airplane before those spatially inept morons.

I’d like to see flight attendants chastise people who listen to music through their laptop speakers, instead of using headphones. I’d like to see a flight attendant tell the inconsiderate nincompoop in front of me that slamming his seat into a reclining position while I’m eating my expensive cheese and crackers and raisins is inconsiderate.

I’d like to see a flight attendant explain to some mid-twenties hipster that babies can’t control their crying, but unwashed hipsters can certainly control their eye-rolling and obnoxious deep sighs. Suck it up, hipster, or I’ll take away my toddler’s iPad just before take off and let you enjoy his reaction for the next 3 hours. I’ve heard it for 3 years, so I can just fade it out. Good night.

The best reason I can think of for turning off your gadgets is because it helps you pay attention. The most dangerous time to be on an airplane is during takeoff and landing. That’s when the bad stuff happens. Maybe your cell phone won’t cause it to happen, but it might make things work. If you have to tweet that your plane is going down while I’m trying to reach over you for my oxygen mask, you’re going to be the first person I eat when we crash land on the island.

I’ve never heard a flight attendant claim that the electronics interfere with the airplane’s controls. They only ask you to turn off your gadgets, they don’t explain why. I’ve always assumed it was so you could offer your undivided attention at the only time during the flight when they want you to be conscious and alert.

I’m cool with that. I turn off my gadgets. I power them down, I don’t just put them into airplane mode. Before I board the plane, I store all my extra gadgets in my carry-on, powered down.

Just remember, air travel is amazing. Air travel is cheaper now than it has been at any other point in history. You can fly across the country in less time than it takes to drive between Dallas and Houston. You can leave Korea at 10AM and arrive in New York at 8AM ON THE SAME DAY! We’ve invented time travel, and you’re missing it because you have to check in on Foursquare. If the airlines insisted that you cannot even bring anything electronic on planes, it would still be worth flying. If they told you every flight would be a “Grease” singalong, it would still be worthwhile. Actually, that would be cool at first, but as a Platinum flier I could see that getting old.

Stop whining and turn off your phone, you self-absorbed, super-entitled, do-nothing. Instead, spend the time pleasantly reminiscing about your trip. The sights. The culture. The business at hand. The cab driver who wouldn’t stop talking on his Bluetooth, even though the sign clearly says the driver will not talk on the phone. See? It’s contagious.

Buy a new TV

Last year, I vowed to “Use my gadgets to do things more than I do things on my gadgets.” I don’t know what that means, but I think it was my way of telling myself not to buy a new TV. All year long, I held onto that mantra, and used my resolution as a way to keep myself from the purchase. It has been a very difficult year to avoid buying a TV.

First, I started working for Samsung in my day job. Now, TVs are cheaper and more readily available to me than ever before. Plus, we have a room dedicated to awesome TVs where I can test our convergence products. I get that room for short stints at a time, then I have to leave. I am not allowed to hook up my PlayStation 3. Man, I want one of those TVs.

Second, I got a divorce. That means I don’t have anyone around telling me I can’t go larger than 38-inches because of the size of the entertainment cabinet. In fact, I got rid of that cabinet, too. So, the wall’s the limit. We sold the house, so I had some cash money on hand. Also, I needed something huge to fill the void of endless loneliness created by the dissolution of my 15-year commitment. A TV would be perfect for that.

Third, all my favorite video games can now be played in 3D. There are movies in 3D worth buying. I never minded the 3D glasses, not much. TVs are cheaper than ever, thinner than ever, and they look great.

I give up. I’m buying a TV. I’ll wait until after CES, when the new models are introduced, and pick up last year’s model for a good price. I might even wait until the Super Bowl sales start. But I will have my TV. So the lesson here, I suppose, is to make resolutions that you were probably going to stick to anyway. That way, when I buy a new set, I’ll feel good knowing that I have stuck to my resolutions, as well.

Take more pictures

So, I’m not going to be an anti-consumerist this year, but I’m still not going to buy useless junk, unless you find a 51-inch 3D plasma TV useless, in which I don’t need to hear your stupid opinion. One way to make a commitment I’ll stick to is to resolve to use the things I already have in better ways.

For instance, my cameras. I have a ton of cameras. I’m not a professional-level photographer, but I can handle Manual mode on a DSLR with little trouble. I have a DSLR with a bunch of lenses, a point-and-shoot, an HD camcorder that I would never have bought if I knew how good video recording on DSLRs would become, and every phone I have uses a 5-12 megapixel camera, with HD video. I pre-ordered a Lytro camera, too.

Now it’s time to take more pictures. More pictures of my son and my family, of course. But maybe a photo safari is in order. Head down to the wild landscape of southwest Texas or Louisiana and fill up some memory cards.

Read more books

The first thing my mother asked when she picked me up at the airport was whether I was reading anything good. Actually, I don’t think I’m reading anything at all. I finished The Hunger Games, and I’m meandering through Game of Thrones and the subsequent books. But I’m not the avid reader I once was.

I blame television. Early in the TV season, I record a bunch of new shows, then eliminate some from my round-up as they get cancelled or I lose interest. This year, I’m going to subtract more shows than I add. Some shows with a good premise but very mediocre execution will have to go. Sorry “Terra Nova” and “Person of Interest.” You both had promise, but you’re dead to me now. I’m going to give the new Hurley show “Alcatraz” 2 episodes to win me over after the mid-season break, then I’m gone.

In my spare time, I’ll read. I used to read every single night. It’s time for that to start happening again. My problem is that I make a good resolution (Read more books) and implement a bad plan (Read the entire new translation of “À la recherche du temps perdu”).

Now that books are no longer printed on dead trees, I might be more cavalier about stopping a bad novel. I might be less interested in filling in the gaps of lost classics that I want to own and have around, but not necessarily read. Instead, I’m going to actually read more books.

Document the important stuff

Reading through my social networking history, I can tell you all sorts of interesting facts about my life. I can tell you what song was stuck in my head on a Monday in November of 2009. I can tell you which airports I’ve been to, and if there were any major, annoying flight delays. I can tell you how many times I remembered to check in at the movies, but not which films I saw. Yawn.

I’m going to make an effort this year to use my technology to keep track of the important stuff. Not my family, I don’t need a reminder to take pictures of my toddler. He’s the subject of all my pictures anyway. No, I mean the personal stuff I’m avoiding.

It’s time to track the vitals. I have at least 3 different types of devices with a pedometer built in. I have 2 devices that can track heart rate. I have a multitude of apps to track calories and diet. I have apps to track health progress, fitness goals, and one that takes a photo every day and makes a movie to show your progress.

In other words, it’s time to stop tracking nonsense and start tracking useful information. It’s time to stop sharing silly minutia, and start saving important personal information that I can use and keep to myself. Of course, all of this is in the service of my next resolution.

Lose some weight

I know this is probably the most popular New Year’s Resolution, but this is a meta-tech resolutions list, so here’s how my resolution is different. Weight problems run in my family. My cousin Rachel started a blog to help with her weight loss goals. She lost more than 120 pounds. She doesn’t just look better. She looks like a different person who then also lost a lot of weight and looks like an even more different person.

I think Rachel would agree she got a big boost from blogging her experience because of the accountability it created. When you make this sort of thing public, you create an audience, even if it’s only in your own head. Then, you feel obligated to deliver to that audience. The same thing happens with personal trainers. When you know you have scheduled appointments to see a personal trainer ever week, you feel more accountable for your actions. This should be an ingrained notion in our own heads, but I suspect my wiring is faulty.

Where I think most weight-loss resolutions go wrong is that they aren’t really new goals. We’re constantly trying to lose weight all the time, so setting this as a resolution is like saying you’ll drink coffee every morning or you’ll floss more. You’ve pretty much already decided what you’ll do, and a resolution won’t change anything. When you fail at the resolution, you’re simply failing at the new action, but there is little accountability. After all, who really cares about New Year’s Resolutions?

So, my resolution is accountability itself, not simply to lose weight. I’ll hold myself accountable, through recorded progress and other digital means and reminders. Maybe I’ll go public, maybe I’ll just keep a personal record. But it’s going to work, because If it doesn’t, I’ll know exactly when things went wrong.

I know more than anyone else you know

I know, I didn’t get a degree in Computer Science. You have no idea where I learned all of this stuff, and I could hardly explain it either. Mostly, it comes from making a lot of mistakes, and then begging smart, vicious people to help me. I know I can sound exasperated walking you through tech problems, but if I’ve never told you to RTFM and compared you to Hitler, trust me it could be much worse. That said, before you ask anyone else for advice about anything, ask me.

I know more about technology than any retail employee you will encounter anywhere. I know more than the folks at the Verizon store. I know more than the folks at Best Buy. I know more than half of the people at the cable company; anybody not issued a crimper is beneath my technical knowledge. Stop asking these people for help. They are only making it worse.

I know the guy at Verizon offered to help sync all your contacts from your old SIM card, but I might have a better way. And no more signing contract agreements without getting a nice phone subsidy coming your way. I know you bought your computer at Best Buy, but this isn’t a car dealership. Those folks probably know less about your gear than any other type of repair shop you’ll encounter.

When your cable company tells you there is no problem with your Internet service, then suggests you stop by to pick up a newer, more expensive router with wireless built in, call me first. I may know a trick or two.

Never delete anything

My father works in an office with a ton of files. Actual paper files with little color-coded letter stickers on them, all arranged neatly in a set of large filing cabinets. Every few years, they get to throw away the deactivated files, which is a huge process, but it reclaims space. Paper systems are more efficient with a good waste disposal system. But this doesn’t translate to computers.

At some point, early on, a computer geek told my father that his computer was running slowly because he was out of memory. I’m guessing his hard drive was 99% full at the time, which can actually cause problems. Today, he’s using a couple gigs of half-terabyte storage system. He also has a 500GB backup drive. He throws things away like his computer is Noah’s Ark and he’s got to save space or lose the dinosaurs forever.

I went looking for Skype on his machine this past week, and all I found was an alias, a shortcut. This shortcut opened a Skype installer. No app, just the installer. I asked about it. Turns out, at the end of every conversation, he deletes Skype. Tosses it in the trash. Then, when he wants to chat again, he goes to Skype.com and downloads the newest app. When he can remember his login information, he can then make calls.

The psychology behind all of this is fascinating. Is this a better practice, or worse? Is the waste of time balanced by having the latest version of the app? Why am I not getting through to him on how much storage he has?

I’ve told him he has enough storage to hold the entire works of Shakespeare, Encyclopedia Britannica, and every book he’s ever read, with room for a few hundred more copies of each. He has enough room to hold every DVD in his library, if he wanted to rip them all. His photo library is not taking up a tenth of his storage space, so there’s no need to delete any photo he might find in the least bit pleasing.

But he still deletes. He doesn’t just delete email, he deletes the email app. He doesn’t just clean up his bookmarks, he tosses the browser. Forget about throwing out the baby with the bathwater. He throws out the baby and the bathwater, then gets a vasectomy to make sure this sort of thing never happens again.

Never install anything

What really gets to me is that even though he deletes everything needlessly, he’s still chocked full of garbage. His Web browser, which is somehow completely up to date, miracle of miracles, is bogged down by multiple toolbars. He’s got weather apps and widgets clogging up his status bar. Every time I move a folder, Norton double checks to tell me everything’s copacetic.

Here’s how this happens: a pop-up appears asking my parents to install something, and they do. Pop-ups look a lot like system notifications to them. It’s all just messages from the computer, so they trust and click. That’s how the browser gets updated. That’s also how they are running on so much bloat. They try to open a file, but it uses a weird file extension, so the computer offers them new software to download. They do it. During the installation of one piece of software, they see confusing offers and end up saying yes to others.

Then the system slows down. Must be because the memory is full, my father thinks. And he starts deleting with relish.

It’s time to upgrade . . . everything

My parents bought my toddler a kids tablet toy. It comes with some software installed, but as soon as you turn on the toy, before it offers you any software, it asks if you want to download more from the download store. That requires a PC connection. No problem, except that my parents bought their PC in 2006. Their software is out of date, and it cannot be upgraded.

When I used to sell computers, I used to tell people “Be happy with what it does right now, and it will always do those things. It just might not be able to do the new stuff down the road.”

Well, we’ve gotten to the end of that road. The desktop had a good 5 year run, about what I expect from a desktop. It can’t run the newest systems. It can’t work properly with the newest mobile devices and peripherals. It can still work on the Web just fine, but it’s a bit underpowered for the high definition and fast streaming content my parents might enjoy watching.

While you’re at it, get a new cell phone. My father’s phone is a clamshell. It’s fairly new. Carriers still sell clamshells. But it’s time to upgrade. About once a month I get frantic messages from him. “Philip, we’ve been trying to reach you, but you haven’t been answering your phone. Please call us as soon as you get this message.”

I have 3 email accounts, including my corporate email. I have a Twitter account and a Facebook page, and I’m active on both. Even better, I am a huge Google Voice fan, and calling or texting that number makes at least 6 phones ring. So, why couldn’t he get a hold of me?

Old number. He was using a phone number I had back in 2004. I’m not sure how it ended up the only number he had for me in his phonebook. Neither is he. Nobody knows, but I blame the guy at the cell phone store who tried to “sync” his contacts through his SIM card.

My parents would not use any of the same features on a smartphone that I use. I use my phone for social networking and work tasks. They don’t use Facebook, Twitter, or LinkedIn (thank gawd). They probably don’t care about the star charts, the music stores, and the hundreds of games. But they would love some Fandango. And they would go crazy for the navigation and location-based features.

Dad: “Okay, I checked my tire pressure and it’s all good. So tonight you can take your mother’s car or you can take the Jag.”
PB: ” . . . ”
Dad: “Are you sure you want the Jag? It doesn’t have navigation. How will you know where you’re going?”
PB: “Shut up and give me the keys.”

Also, time to get a new digital camera. Nobody uses CF cards anymore, and a 2GB limit on storage is ridiculous. Plus, did you know even the cheapest cameras can now take video in high definition? And don’t get me started on geotagging. Heck, it might even be time to replace that old Kindle. E-ink screens have gotten even better since the first generation.

Don’t buy anything that requires my help

By now, it might be obvious that I’m a prissy, pretentious schmuck. I can live with that. I don’t mind if people don’t take my tech advice. In fact, sometimes I even prefer it. I’d rather not take your late night phone calls complaining about your phone’s address book, or commiserate the second time you dropped your precious glass phone and the screen shattered again. But I’m happy to give my advice, and I promise to always take tech advice giving seriously. I won’t steer you wrong.

But when you go out and buy something tech related without asking me first, you’re on your own. Having trouble setting up that router? Good luck with that. Can’t figure out that cheap tablet you bought? Should have asked me first. Surprised your new device didn’t come with memory cards and requires a boatload of AA batteries every week just to function properly? I could have warned you, but you didn’t ask.

I’m a know-it-all, and I’m obnoxious, but I also get offended easily when people don’t respect my expertise, as it were. When I show up at my parents’ home and see some new gadget or piece of tech lying around, I feel like a cat who’s come home to a new puppy. I sniff around it disdainfully. I turn away from it and aim my backside in its general direction. I give off a vibe that says “What is THIS doing here? And why was I not consulted?”

Now, before we get into this, I should note that the rumor comes from Digitimes, a publication that has been wildly wrong in the past, but continues to pump out rumors at an astounding rate. So, even if the idea sounds convincing, it’s best to take its report with a grain of salt.

However, for this column, let’s assume that the Digitimes report is true and Apple really is planning to launch 32- and 37-inch TV models. Am I the only one who would hate the idea of buying such a small set?

Yes, I know that I’ve said here before that I will buy the Apple television no matter what. But that was based on an earlier report that suggested the smallest Apple TV screen size would be 42 inches. Now, with the prospect of getting a small, 32-inch set, I just don’t see any reason to buy an Apple television.

With the way people are using their televisions today, bigger screens matter. For instance, folks might put a television above a fireplace and sit, say, 15 feet from the set. A 32- or 37-inch Apple television wouldn’t do the trick for that set-up.

Granted, Apple might be trying to release smaller screens so it can keep the price down, but as the popularity of Samsung’s expensive 7000 and 8000 series of televisions have shown, people are more than willing to drop a couple grand on a television as long as it comes with all the features they want. And one of the features they desire is a big screen.

Of course, there are those who might disagree with my argument. They might say that the 32- or 37-inch Apple TV would be perfect for bedrooms or dorm rooms or other areas where a larger display might not be so important. And I would gladly agree with that sentiment.

However, it’s worth noting that in most cases, consumers aren’t so willing to spend thousands of dollars on a television for a bedroom or dorm room. And according to Piper Jaffray analyst Gene Munster, Apple’s televisions will cost about twice as much as comparable sets already on store shelves. In other words, you’ll be paying 55-inch TV prices on a 32-inch set.

So, I just don’t see how a 32- or 37-inch Apple TV is worth buying. I have no doubt the televisions will be well-built and compelling in their own, unique way, but at such high prices for such small screens, I see absolutely no good reason to buy them.

Apple must deliver 42-inch screens and up. If it can’t do that, I just don’t see how the company — even with its successful branding — can come close to matching Samsung and Vizio in the television market.

As for me? Well, my holiday wish list was dominated by one entertainment option: video games.

2011 was a fantastic year for the gaming industry. We might not have had any console launches, but we didn’t need them. All year, some of the top game franchises offered up refreshes that, most of us would agree, delivered some of the best experiences in quite some time.

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 proved that an old franchise that has the same basic functions in each iteration can still be popular among gamers. The title generated $1 billion in just 16 days, and as far as I’m concerned, delivered the best first-person shooter experience this year.

There’s also the litany of major titles that impressed those who wanted a somewhat different experience, including Skyrim, Uncharted 3, Red Dead Redemption, L.A. Noire, Batman: Arkham City, and countless other titles.

And for those who wanted a bit more firepower in their lives this year, they were able to boot up their Xbox 360 with Gears of War 3, a game that put a beautiful bow on a franchise that has been so beloved over the years.

Of course, there were some disappointments this year — I’m looking at you, Battlefield 3 — but they were few and far between. And even when gamers found some losers, they quickly came across dozens of worthwhile titles that could satiate their desire for something a bit better.

So, what happened this year? Was this truly the best gaming year ever?

It’s tough to say.

The fact is, many of the year’s top games were simply new versions of franchises we have been enjoying playing for years. And although titles like L.A. Noire came from new ideas, they were few and far between.

In the past, I’ve railed against the gaming industry for derivative gameplay and sequel after sequel. But when I look back at this year’s gaming, I can’t help but wonder if I was wrong. Sure, there’s less innovation now than there was a decade ago, but if we look at all the titles that came out this year that appealed to gamers, it’s hard to argue against the industry’s strategy. Like it or not, developers have found a formula that works. And I, like so many others, benefited from it this year.

All in all, 2011 has proven to be an interesting year. The gaming industry has officially taken the world by storm. And there is a good chance 2012 could be an even bigger year.

I, for one, can’t wait to see what happens next.

[Image credit: Julian B]

I’m away from my family this holiday, and it seemed an excellent time to take advantage of Skype for a video call or two on Christmas day. The tech world may have raced ahead, but carriers and roaming phone calls still lag behind, and using my cellphone to ring could easily rack up a bill greater than I was spending on gifts. Trying to install Skype onto a regular Windows laptop, though, proved to be an irritant greater than forgetting to defrost the turkey.

My parents aren’t stupid, or even particularly tech-naive. They’ve managed to install routers and printers – something, along with scanners, almost guaranteed to get my blood boiling – by themselves before now, and they know how to run regular anti-virus and malware scans and keep their PCs in shapely condition.

Installing Skype, then, ought to have been an easy matter: we should’ve been video chatting within minutes. In actual fact, though, the convoluted online registration process – page after page of setting up a new account, uncertainty over what personal information was mandatory and what wasn’t (and being thrown back to the beginning when something was inadvertently left out, with no obvious indicator of why), then installing the app and being forced to put in that account information again, peppered with Skype’s attempts to encourage them to buy SkypeOut credit – stretched out what should’ve been a quick “make a connection” moment into a homework-like chore for my family and a remote frustration for me on the other end of the phone.

We take for granted that some elements of the technology world come more easily to us than others. We overlook elements of bad UI or confusing installer decisions, perhaps don’t even “see” them, because we generally understand what the designers “meant” to say. Those who aren’t immersed within this world suffer for that blasé attitude, are made to feel stupid or inept.

Technology can be wonderful: when all the pieces had finally slotted together, I quietly marveled at how my Galaxy Nexus could give me a clear view into my family’s living room several thousand miles away. I used Skype over WiFi on my phone to make several voice calls, too, at rates a fraction of what O2 would’ve charged me to roam onto T-Mobile USA’s network. But to have that video call with my family on Christmas Day, I had to create a new Skype account for them on my phone and read the login details out: the new account Skype had made for them simply wouldn’t let them log in.

Skype could have won some devoted customers over the holidays. Imagine an undemanding webpage – holiday themed, perhaps – promoting the simplicity and convenience of video calling, created in HTML5 maybe or using the same quick plugin as Skype made for Facebook’s video chat integration. A couple of clicks, a temporary username, and you’re talking with and waving to loved ones many miles away. At the end of the call, you’d have the option to convert that temporary account into a permanent one, perhaps receive a little tester SkypeOut credit with the prompt to “call a landline this Christmas.” Nothing overwhelming when people are stuffed full of festive food and simply want to connect. Show them how it works, demonstrate why they should want it, rather than making them jump through dozens of hoops first.

(In actual fact, the company ran a “free airport WiFi” promotion across the US. I used it myself in Detroit; there was no promotional material in the airport or when you connected to the network pointing out you could have an hour of free access, you had to guess to log in via Skype WiFi in the app itself rather than putting your Skype username into the Boingo roaming page, and, even when you’d done all that, it was still unclear whether you were going to be charged. Every ten minutes a warning dialog popped up asking if I wanted to extend my session, cautioning it would probably cost me each time (it didn’t). Even as a frequent hotspot user I was confused, and it would hardly have made a good impression with a novice.)

The barrier to geek nirvana is still too high. Previously it was a matter of price: a computer, or a smartphone, was expensive. Those who could afford them inevitably spent the time understanding their intricacies, to “make the most” of the functionality on offer. As prices have diminished, though, the headaches and confusions have persisted. The barrier is a more pervasive now, too, and the wonderful promises phones, tablets, computers and other tech make are all too often locked behind poor communication, unnecessary gimmicks and an over-emphasis on something looking good rather than being straightforward to use. I find myself wondering how many people will end their holidays satisfied and enthused about the gadgets they received, and how many will be disillusioned.

Companies and analysts haven’t tired of telling us how 2011 has been a difficult year for those trying to sell hardware, software and services to an increasingly cost-conscious public. Turning every user into an evangelist is worth a hundred expensive advertising campaigns; 2012 could be the year when simplicity and usability catch up with feature promises and geek hyperbole.