Techgeist

Who would have thought that Michael Arrington’s small science fair project would ever see the light of day? Color me impressed, and dead wrong a year later. With a heft of just 1.2 Kg and a 12″ screen, the CrunchPad is real, functional, and hopefully coming to market soon. The sooner the better, in fact. Of course, not even on the shelves it is drawing fire for its lack of internal storage. Bollocks. Any so called “pundit” who does not get what this device is for, should retire.

The complete lack of internal storage (and physical keyboard) are due to their, repeating my words, complete lack of necessity. To begin: the tablet is to use the internet, not to use MS Word. You have GoogleDocs, or any of a fistful of competitors to work on documents with. There is no need to have physical storage to do this. The CrunchPad is akin to a cloud-portal. It is a firm step against the local file storage structure that we have become so accustomed to.

Secondly, the keyboard issue is also a nonstarter. This computer is meant for a purpose: browsing the internet. This is not a …

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Comcast is not my favorite company. You know why, if you actually use the internet. But as I am currently typing this post via a Comcast provided internet connection (ie: I pay them, they give me internet), I have to cover this. Comcast is now launching their splendid new 4G network, with the help of Clearwire, and some WiMax love.

Brilliantly called “Comcast High-Speed 2go,” it is about twice as fast as the 3G access you are used to having on your iPhone. Not bad, at an average 4 megabits. It is coming to Portland Or, where I am currently located, today. While I am not shelling out the extra bucks (iPhone 3G tethering is fine for me), someone is.

This is a big deal, if you live in a soon to be supported metro area, have extra money to blow, dislike finding wifi, and want to give Comcast money to continue being assholes. Or: a big deal for seven people. When they actually manage to fling the signal far enough to make wireless actually not feel like “crap-im-out-of-range-fi” I will pay attention.

Today is a big day for everyone at TechGeist: we are proud to annouce the launch for SocialGeist, our newest property. SocialGeist, like TechGeist will feature trend setting writing on cutting edge topics. However, instead of focusing on the more technical aspects of technology, it will focus on the people involved. The social aspect, if you will. SocialGeist will feature TechGeist author Holden Page as its editor, and we are excited to bring on our fifth author Daniel Monzelowsky as the second contributing SocialGeist author.

Both SocialGeist and TechGeist remain under the same corporate umbrella, NextTech. Everyone here in the team is wildly excited about this launch, and we think that you will be once you get a look at what we are building. So, head over to SocialGeist and take a look around, throw it in your RSS reader, and let’s get to work.

I know that you probably do not enjoy annual meetings of companies. These meetings for even the hottest company can easily be surpassed on the excitement scale by watching paint dry while blindfolded competitions. Yahoo’s recent annual meeting was nothing of the sort if you read between the lines. Fortunately both Businessweek and the WSJ liveblogged the whole deal a few days ago. After reading and comparing notes from the around the internet, we have the dirty bits for you to read.

Let’s start with search: Yahoo is screwed. Quick, what does BOSS stand for? Yeah, I thought so. That is one of Yahoo’s largest pushes on the search front Carol Bartz (CEO) brought up. Even more, Yahoo will not be working with Google on search, period. Something about the government disliking the move. Or put more carefully: we are not in a position to fight this, and Google is not going to pick a fight with regulators over a deal with us. We are alone, and our search offerings will continue to be third rate.

In regards to the small and unused bits of the Yahoo-verse that waste money, Carol …

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Here is a small morsel of good news if you are still reeling from the turmoil of the past several weeks: China has pulled back from its “Green Damn Youth Escort” software. You recall Green Damn, it was that buggy trash software that China put out to filter the internet, and control its populace. That Green Dam, not this one.

Of course, China was under intense pressure from literally everyone: the US, the EU, hackers, its population. It is one thing to do as Britain does, and slowly lock down a populace with cameras, searches, and brutal laws, but far another to merely announce that you will control all of their information influx. The Chinese government’s hubris can still surprise, even to this day. If they are playing a hearts and minds campaign, they are failing.

Perhaps they will merely attempt to patch the software, and go at it again, at which point PC manufacturers will have yet another choice: give in? In all honesty, if all the PC manufacturers refused it, the Chinese government would be in trouble. Computers are a vital aspect of the modern economy, and the Chinese …

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Adobe, maker of your favorite products to pirate, is shutting down for a week, to boost profitability. Adobe has plans for a third shutdown of its North American operations later this year, after this shutdown follows the first from April. Adobe of course is already known as the odd company that does not operated between Christmas and New Years, a bit like a Middle School. Of course, the company is not releasing any data on this shutdown, so all we can do is speculate.

Here is a start, Adobe is already profitable. For the quarter ending on May 29 the company was 126 million dollars profitable. The shutdowns hardly make sense considering that, unless they are timed in the development cycle so perfectly that they help give developers a rest. But in a company of Adobes size, you can bet that developers are harder to find than at your local bootstrapped startup.

Apparently Adobe’s management has found the formula: the minimum number of employee hours to still maximize profit. In the current economic climate, it is hard to blame them.

–Update–

Industry veteran @Guze has pointed out that shutdowns between Christmas and New Years are quite common in the Valley. The author apologizes for …

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If you are planning on heading to the TechCrunch50, (I am, so come and party with me), the time to buy your ticket is right now. If you wait until tomorrow to purchase your ticket, the cost is going to rise by 500 dollars. Here is the cost structure:

• $995 – Special Recession Buster – through May 31 (limited to 500 tickets; 50% off early-bird rates)
• $1,495 – Extra Early Bird – June 1 through June 30
• $1,995 – Early Bird – July 1 through July 31
• $2,995 – Regular Admission – August 1 forward (based on availability)

God forbid if you wait until August to get a ticket. As an aside, TechGeist will be covering the whole deal, from the morning, to the parties, to whatever @Arrington cooks up for us. Grab a ticket, let’s all have some fun.

A quick note from the trenches: Google is going to monetize the hell out of its preforming properties. This allows them to build Wave and still have the stock price that they are so accustomed to maintaining. Take a look at this:

Google is brilliant: this ad placement is beautiful. It actually is a pre-search that brings me what I (probably) want before I even have to search for it. The time savings is measurable, Google pads the bank account, and the advertiser gets an even more premier place to push their products.

AppleInsider is reporting that Apple is going to be releasing some cheaper Macs, maybe. How many people think that this really matters? Here is the only question you need to answer: will Apple release a full computer (screen, keyboard, etc) for an equivalent price to that of a PC? The answer is no, and this is why [from DailyTech]:

“Macs have gone from an average price of $1,432 and $1,574, for desktops and laptops respectively in June ‘06 to $1,543 and $1,515 respectively in June ‘08. While much lower to start, PCs are now even lower in average sale price. The average PC notebook went from $877 to $700.”

How sad it is to see the end of the First Great Boom, this time in the form of a general collapse of AOL. With its most recent earnings coming in (year over year), down a stunning 23%, it is headed out the door. What public company would want such a stupendously underperforming asset such as AOL? What company, such as Time Warner, with all of their own headaches, would keep a non-core asset failing so egregiously.

Now, it has become clear that AOL is on the way out of the Time Warner fold. TechCrunch has quotes to make you giggle. We here at the TG office were kicking this over, and we kept returning to the original terms of that AOL Time Warner deal. Go look it up. Now, how pathetic is this?