This afternoon I had the pleasure of being a guest on Randall Bennett’s TechVi video show. I worked with Randall back in the old AOL / Weblogs days and I enjoy talking tech with him. TechVi uses a two-guest format so I always get to chat with new folks in this space. Today it was Ross Rubin from The NPD Group, whom I generally only see once a year at CES. Besides being an analyst at The NPD Group, Ross authors the weekly “Switched On” column for Engadget.

Today’s chat was focused on Google’s Chrome OS announcement, but not from a nuts and bolts standpoint. Since details are scarce on how Chrome OS will actually work, Randall focused today’s TechVi show on the business side of the news. We briefly tackled questions on the impact to Google’s search efforts and on whether or not the creation of Chrome OS would be a distraction to Google as they grow their business. It was a fun experience as always, and I’m appreciative that Randall offered me the opportunity. You can catch the 7-minute spot right here on TechVi to see and hear how Ross and I view the Google Chrome OS news.

We’ve long felt that Wi-Fi is a must for smartphones, and while some of you disagree, Sprint’s on board. Fierce Wireless is reporting that the carrier will require Wi-Fi in their “PDA equipment,” which sounds like smartphones to me. Sprint is introducing RIM’s BlackBerry Tour this weekend, and like Verizon’s edition, it isn’t equipped with Wi-Fi. That will change next year as Sprint is reportedly planning a version of the Tour that includes a Wi-Fi radio.

Some dissenters in the past felt that their 3G radio is more than enough signal. Not to harp on a hot topic again today, but it’s in areas where carriers have those pesky bandwidth caps that Wi-Fi can be a huge lifesaver. Aside from gaining faster throughput, you’re not hitting your data cap when using a Wi-Fi network for voice, data, or media. Verizon hasn’t yet made the commitment to include Wi-Fi on every handset, but I wouldn’t be surprised to see them to follow suit at some point.

This may be another one of those U.S. challenges, so if any readers outside of our country can share the Wi-Fi handset landscape with us, please do.

I haven’t been able to see the personal benefits of using an air mouse. Those are the wireless mice that move the cursor around the screen when you wave the mouse around in the air. I’m sure there are folks who find the air mouse to be the best thing since mice lost wires, but I’m not one of those. I do have to admit the Loop Pointer looks like a pretty nice implementation of the air mouse, though.

The Loop Pointer is basically a circle with buttons and a scroll wheel on the mouse. This looks like it could be a great mouse solution for Media Centers. It would also be a fantastic presentation pointer, I’ll bet. It’s expensive at $99, but some might find that reasonable.

(via TRFJ)

We’ve known that Clearwire soft-launched its CLEAR WiMAX service in “sin city” some time ago, but it becomes more official on July 21. The company has invited press and media contacts for an afternoon of demos, likely similar to what I experienced at the Baltimore launch last year. From 4 p.m. to 8 p.m. on launch day, Clearwire is hosting a consumer event at Town Square Mall, 6605 Las Vegas Boulevard South, Las Vegas. Folks who are curious about the benefits of WiMAX can experience it for themselves, get a look at WiMAX devices, and hear about the unique pricing plans that Clearwire is offering.

Since the Las Vegas market has already been enjoying fast wireless broadband, this seems more like a marketing event. But it’s good news for WiMAX fans, as it shows that Clearwire is sticking to its rollout plan for 2009 so far. Bear in mind that the plan for 2009 is 10 markets. Lighting up Las Vegas officially brings us to three, so there’s a long road to hoe. That’s been the biggest sticking point –  getting the service quickly enabled in major markets. Right now, I think one of our readers who used the service sums up that point best:

I have enjoyed the ClearWire service, but I will probably cancel…The data services by ATT and Verizon are close to ubiquitous in populated areas.  Guaranteed access is more important to me than sheer speed of connection when I’m on the go.

That’s a powerful statement, and it underlies the rollout constraints. Another challenge is marketing, but events like the one on July 21 can go a long way to helping that cause. Although I live near the Philadelphia market, I haven’t seen any WiMAX marketing at all. That could be due to me living outside the planned coverage area, however.

One last concern I’ve personally witnessed and have heard others confirm is coverage holes. Perhaps the official launch means that most of the gaps have been plugged? I won’t be at the Las Vegas event, so I’ll rely on locals to tell me more in that regard. At this point, the service in Baltimore has been live for over six months. I asked back then if it will get better with age, so maybe it’s time for folks using the service there to check in. Are you still finding major variances in speed as you change location? Are the service gaps fewer and farther apart?

Verizon MiFi- 3G router

I had a good holiday this weekend past and participated in a great conversation about 3G in the U.S. There were a bunch of people over to the house and the conversation started out about the various phone carriers and 3G. A number of my friends are beginning to become aware of 3G and have been thinking a lot about what it could do for them. This is a recent change, as most folks not involved in the tech industry don’t think much about 3G in my experience. This is changing, if the chat with my friends is any indication.

What I found particularly interesting about this 3G conversation was that it had nothing to do with smartphones. No one was asking which phone had good 3G capability, or even which carrier network was good for smartphones. No, the question floating around was if 3G could be used to replace home Internet connectivity. This set me back, I must admit, as I never would have guessed that folks were thinking of 3G along these lines.

As the discussion unfolded, I realized that many now understand that laptops can be outfitted with integrated 3G. Everyone seemed to be aware of this, a new finding for me. What was a bit surprising was how no one wanted integrated 3G in their laptop, or even in their phone; instead they wanted 3G to blanket their home so that all of their laptops could use it. They weren’t even concerned about connectivity outside the home, just at home, as that’s where they all stated they used the web.

I was amazed to hear that folks are looking at 3G to use strictly at home and to replace their expensive home Internet service. That was the main reason given for the questioning: price. They also could see a benefit in having a service that did not require a wire to come into the home. So given this change of attitude towards 3G, what do the carriers need to do to capitalize on it? Could WiMAX be the technology to push the wireless web into the mainstream? It’s good food for thought, that’s for sure.

When Apple announced its push notifications for mobile software titles, I was skeptical. That’s not surprising, because I was raised in a multitasking world. In that world, you just run multiple apps at the same time and flip around from one bit of software to another. It’s the world that we all live in today with our computers. But the mobile world isn’t the same as the desktop world. Running multiple applications can hit the CPU and radios harder on our handsets, which, in turn, use more battery power.

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When Microsoft announced the pricing of Windows 7, it created a fair bit of commentary here and elsewhere. Debate raged on the prices being high, low or just right, but one common thread was found. There were several comments requesting a family pack of licenses, and I don’t recall seeing any dissenters to that opinion.

ZDNet’s Ed Bott eye-spied some legalese in the latest Windows 7 licensing agreement that leads him to believe Microsoft will indeed offer a family pack for the operating system. Ed found this tidbit in the Windows 7 Home Premium version:

“If you are a ‘Qualified Family Pack User’, you may install one copy of the software marked as ‘Family Pack’ on three computers in your household for use by people who reside there.”

If this comes to pass, I think it’s a good move. It’s not uncommon for households to have more than one computer these days. Some folks (*looks in mirror with guilt*) own several devices by themselves. The “family pack” idea isn’t new to Microsoft, either. In the past, it’s offered its Home and Student Office editions that support a similar approach: One discounted price covers three individual licenses.

Ed asks a great question, so I’d like to reiterate it here: If Microsoft does offer a three-license family pack for Windows 7 Home Premium, what kind of price would you expect? Ed’s betting on $189, which I think would be reasonable.

There aren’t many times where an exciting new web technology comes to handheld devices before it hits the traditional desktops and notebooks, but this is one of those times. Over at NewTeeVee, Liz shows off a video that demonstrates Apple’s HTTP adaptive video streaming. Support for the feature is already in the new iPhone 3.0 software and it offers two key benefits.

For starters, you don’t need to either download or pay for an application to view HTTP video streams, since in theory you can view it in a browser. And since the data is sent over HTTP with other traditional web traffic, you don’t need to punch a firewall hole to consume the content. Using HTTP also allows content to be broken down into viewable chunks so the provider can send the most optimized chunk to viewers at any given time. That’s where the “adaptive” part optimizes video playback based on the speed of your connection. In the video demo, you can see this happen over a 3G connection: the video starts out a little fuzzy, but eventually cleans itself up rather nicely.

iPhone owners can view the same demos at http://iphone.akamai.com to see live streams of NASA TV or FoxBusiness.com Live, plus on-demand segments of Storm Chasers, Deadliest Catch and several other channels. I tested a few videos on my iPhone 3GS and the quality was outstanding. In some ways, it rivals and may even exceed the great experiences I’ve had with SlingPlayer Mobile, which also optimizes the media stream. Here’s a screen-cap from my phone to give you an idea of what I’m seeing once the optimization takes place:

As I alluded to above, this functionality is on mobiles first. Support for HTTP adaptive streaming is due to arrive in Apple’s next operating system update, called Snow Leopard, which ships in September of this year.

Thanks to dual-boot methods, we don’t have to rely on a single operating system to meet our needs. But choosing and locking into an OS at boot time can be constraining. Virtual machine software removes that constraint by allowing us to run an OS inside of an OS. For all intents and purposes, it looks like both systems are running side-by-side. Parallels Desktop and VMware Fusion are among the top commercial solutions and I’ve used both. They solve the multiple OS challenge very well for those that don’t mind paying. I feel that they’re worth the price of admission, but folks on a budget should take Sun’s open-source VirtualBox for a spin.

The free virtualization software is now available in its third major iteration and the refresh adds features previously found only in the paid version of the competitor’s packages. New to VirtualBox 3.0 is support for Open GL 2.0 as well as Direct 3D 8/9 in Windows. Also included is the ability for guest operating systems to use up to 32 virtual CPUs. The entire change log is here and it’s filled with other enhancements and fixes. VirtualBox might not be as glitzy, glamorous or functional for games as solutions from Parallels or VMware, but you can’t beat the price. It’s definitely a must-see if you want to run multiple operating systems at the same time on a Windows, Mac or Linux machine.

This seems to be a small USB Wi-Fi card with a giant antenna, but I’m not really sure it will actually boost the Wi-Fi range of a Mac as claimed. The Quicky Jr II from Quickertek plugs into any USB port on a Mac running OS X 10.4 or later, and the company claims it boosts the range of Wi-Fi by three times.

Quicky Jr II supports 802.11 b/g/n, and I guess it replaces the internal Wi-Fi on your Mac. It will set you back $90 to find out how well it works, which is kind of expensive, especially for a clunky USB solution to a problem you may not have. Of course, if you can’t reach your home Wi-Fi network all the way out by the pool, maybe this is for you.

(via TUAW)