Opinion - SlashGear

‘opinion’ Stories

Columns

Nokia Bought Time, But That Clock Is Ticking

Chris Davies, Jan 26th 2012 Discuss [0]

$1.25 billion in losses would normally be a pretty dire way to end a quarter, but Nokia managed to muster just enough sugar for lemonade with more than a million sales of its first two Windows Phone handsets. After months of “we’ll launch by the end of the year” promises, Elop & Co. came through with not one but two smartphones based on Microsoft’s OS, turning that duo into a trio at CES 2012 earlier this month. As foundations go it’s a solid start, but make no mistake: it only gets tougher from here.

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Columns

Apple TV is an Embarrassment

Chris Davies, Jan 25th 2012 Discuss [0]

“Doing quite well” isn’t a phrase you associate with Apple, and yet that’s just how CEO Tim Cook described the Apple TV this week. The little-loved stepchild of the company’s hardware range, at $99 – with no need for a carrier agreement or subsidy – it had the smart TV price point right while Google TV was floundering at more than twice that amount. Yet Apple has consistently failed to capitalize on its foot-in-the-door of the living room, and it’s looking increasingly like it may miss the opportunity again.

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Columns

Much Ado About Booth Babes

Philip Berne, Jan 24th 2012 Discuss [0]

If you look up the term “objectification of women” in your college dictionary, you’ll probably see a definition illustrated by a photograph of a tall, slender, blond woman wearing skimpy shorts and a tight t-shirt, standing next to a table stacked with plastic cell phone carrying cases. Recently, there’s been a lot of hubbub over these hired guns who stand at booths set up at the trade shows that are dominated by men. The video game shows, the technology shows, the car shows.

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Columns

RIM’s new CEO is a Placeholder not a Prophet

Chris Davies, Jan 23rd 2012 Discuss [12]

After listening to RIM’s new CEO Thursten Heins talk this morning, you could almost hear investors kicking themselves for not being specific enough in their demands for refreshed leadership at the BlackBerry company. “We shouldn’t have just asked for a new CEO” shareholders are no doubt muttering, “but made clear we wanted one with new ideas too.” Heins, for all his hyperbole about the BlackBerry advantage being its “integrated solution” of hardware, software and services, showed his true colors when he argued that “I don’t think there is a drastic change needed.” Those colors, it seems, are exactly the same shades as Mike Lazaridis and Jim Balsillie preferred during their tenure at the top. So, is this new CEO simply a temporary placeholder or a sign of fresh misery to come?

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Columns

HBO Go Could Be the Next Netflix

Don Reisinger, Jan 21st 2012 Discuss [11]

As a Time Warner Cable customer, I was one of the last cable subscribers out there to get access to HBO Go. For months now, many of you have probably been using the streaming service, and to see a column about it now might surprise you. But don’t hold it against me — I was a victim of the oddly contentious relationship between Time Warner Cable and its former corporate overlord, Time Warner.

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Columns

The Problem With Tech and Teaching

Philip Berne, Jan 20th 2012 Discuss [48]

Let me tell you a funny story about technology in the classroom. I was teaching English at a charter school in Boston a few years ago, and my classes were working on “Macbeth.” I’m always looking for new angles of attack, especially with Shakespeare, so I decided to focus on different interpretations and stagings of the play. I cut scenes from a variety of movie versions of Macbeth and showed them to my classes, so we could compare the difference. I used a Royal Shakespeare company version. I used the movie “Scotland, PA,” a wonderful modern adaptation in which Macbeth’s is a fast food restaurant. But my favorite of all was the Roman Polanski version, produced with funding from Hugh Hefner.

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Columns

Why Sony Won’t Launch A New PlayStation This Year (Or Next)

Don Reisinger, Jan 20th 2012 Discuss [71]

I’m often asked when Sony will launch its next PlayStation. Just about everyone is interested in finding out if the next console the consumer electronics giant offers up can be as appealing and popular as its predecessors. The push for Sony to launch a new PlayStation is also born out of the fact that Nintendo is launching a new console this year, called the Wii U. And if history is to be our guide for the future, most console makers launch their new devices around the same time.

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Columns

Microsoft’s Windows Phone Sales Silence Speaks Volumes

Chris Davies, Jan 19th 2012 Discuss [41]

Microsoft’s quarterly financial results today make for great reading if you’re a shareholder, with a record $20.9bn in revenue, but are less reassuring if you’re a Windows Phone fan. The big software company broke down Windows 7 licensing numbers, spilled its Bing search share and gleefully detailed Xbox 360 and Kinect sensor sales, but Microsoft’s smartphone OS merited little more than a vague mention of “a lot of excitement.” This was Microsoft’s most obvious opportunity to hammer home whatever dent Windows Phone had made in the mobile market; that it didn’t leaves us more than a little concerned.

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Columns

Alienware’s X51 puts Games Consoles on Notice

Chris Davies, Jan 18th 2012 Discuss [19]

The Alienware X51 isn’t the biggest gaming PC the Dell-owned company has ever unveiled, nor the fastest, but it’s arguably the biggest challenge to traditional consoles to-date. Packing a full PC into a Xbox-scale chassis, the X51 promises to turn its hand to everything from the latest FPS, high-def multimedia playback and even mundane Office tasks. As the central hub for a smart home, that could be enough to edge it ahead of gaming heavyweights like the PS3 and Xbox 360.

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Columns

SOPA and PIPA are the Wrong Way to Tackle Piracy

Chris Davies, Jan 18th 2012 Discuss [0]

Anti-SOPA and anti-PIPA protests have begun in force today, with sites like Wikipedia giving the internet a taste of a web without freedom of speech, as censorship and piracy take center stage for lawmakers, content-owners and users alike. The proposed acts are, we believe, a heavy-handed and naive approach toward the legitimate issue of content theft. Being against the proposed acts isn’t the same as being “pro-piracy”; that’s why we here at SlashGear (and R3 Media, the company behind SlashGear), as avid content-creators and content-consumers, believe SOPA and PIPA are the wrong way to tackle piracy online.

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Columns

RIM should think Type not Touch for the new PlayBook

Chris Davies, Jan 17th 2012 Discuss [9]

2011 wasn’t Research In Motion‘s year and 2012 is shaping up to be equally dismal one, with dramatic PlayBook price cuts paving the way for an underwhelming financial quarter. It’s easy to see why RIM went down the tablet route: the iPad made slates fashionable, and the Canadian company was stinging from criticism over its underwhelming touchscreen smartphones. The PlayBook was an opportunity to show that RIM could legitimately compete and perhaps even drive some ecosystem shopping in the same manner that iPhone users often pick up an iPad, and vice-versa. Yet in the process RIM managed to forget everything that gave it unique appeal in the mobile segment.

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Columns

Is Skype the Windows Phone Wildcard?

Chris Davies, Jan 16th 2012 Discuss [20]

That Windows Phone lacks a Skype app is, like Apple’s fixation on the word “Magical” and the rampant popularity of Justin Bieber, one of life’s great conundra. Microsoft is desperately seeking “must have” apps to showcase its smartphone platform, and yet it already owns a VoIP company putting out what could legitimately be described as just that on iOS and Android. Delivering Skype for Windows Phone would certainly answer one great criticism of the OS, and cross a further reason off the wait-and-see list for many buyers. Still, it’s the promised deeper integration of Skype into future iterations of Windows Phone, however, that could signal the turning point for the “third platform.”