Spaz on the Pre

I knew that Twitter hit the big time when members of my local news anchor team started using it to do their jobs. They follow local news reporting on Twitter, and they even tweet the current weather. I have used Twitter since the beginning, and it offers some good insight into the happenings around those I follow. There are now good Twitter apps on almost every smartphone platform, so it’s even easier to tweet on the move.

The post I did on disconnectivity anxiety today got me thinking about Twitter. There are those with thousands of followers keeping up with their goings-on, and their “need to tweet” probably is as great as the need to follow for those who are perpetually connected. Twitter can be a good source for breaking news. I first heard about the death of Michael Jackson on Twitter.

My favorite Twitter apps to use are TweetDeck on the PC side, Spaz on the Palm Pre, and Twitterific on the iPhone. The phone apps both do a good job when working with Twitter and when displaying the information in an attractive, easy-to-read format. It’s easy to follow my peeps, and to see who is talking about me. How about you? Do you Twitter, and if so, what apps do you use?

Last week’s Google Chrome OS announcement doesn’t seem to be impacting prior plans for Android netbooks. DigiTimes indicates that Acer is still planning to launch a dual-boot netbook that offers both Microsoft Windows XP and Google Android. I don’t envision any cost difference between an XP/Android netbook and an XP-only device — the cost of a Windows XP license has to be paid in both cases. So there’s no benefit in terms of cost, but there is a value-add in having another operating system for those that want it. Or is there?

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Life happens 24/7; there’s nothing new about that. What is new is our ability to experience it, in real time, no matter whose life it is. First came email, which let us stay connected all the time with co-workers. Then, text messages on our phones kept us in touch with friends and family. Along came the smartphone, which let us stay connected by all of the above technologies and added social media on top of that. Twitter, Facebook, MySpace, you name them, they are all in our hand. More importantly, they are all in our hand 24/7, and some people have become so addicted to the constant contact that they instantly feel anxious when temporarily cut off from them.

Dr. Jim Taylor calls this syndrome “disconnectivity anxiety,” “a persistent and unpleasant condition characterized by worry and unease caused by periods of technological disconnection from others.” This can be very mild in some but nearly incapacitating for others. You may know someone who has the latter reaction — cut them off from the web for any length of time and they freak out.

I have been recently extolling the virtues of unplugging from the technology, so those who are affected by DA likely think I am evil. I am convinced that it is good to disconnect occasionally, though, as it can’t be healthy to be on 24/7 for very long.  It’s a wonderful age, with information being passed constantly, but the reality is we can’t stay on top of everything all the time. Do you suffer from DA when you are disconnected?

AT&T landed another Nokia S60 device today, and some of its hardware reminds me of the old Nokia N800 Internet Tablet. The Nokia Surge is being touted as a “socially supercharged smartphone” probably due to the full, slide-out QWERTY keyboard. The keyboard and the squarish directional pad seem borrowed and matured from the N800 line to me. But don’t mistake this for an Internet tablet alone. It’s a full smartphone that’s 3G-capable as well. At only $79.99 after a $50 mail-in rebate, it’s not going to compete with Nokia’s E71x or other high-end smartphones, but it looks capable enough for someone stepping up from a feature-phone:

• Quad band GSM, dual-band WCMDA/HSDPA
• Symbian S60 platform, v3.2
• 128MB internal memory, 8GB expansion via microSD slot
• 2.4″ QVGA display with auto screen rotation
• Integrated GPS, Bluetooth 2.0 +EDR, with AD2P support
• 2 megapixel camera with 4x digital zoom
• Full HTML browser with Flash support
• Email support with Mail for Exchange 2.9
• Support for AT&T services: Navigator, Mobile Music, VideoShare
• JuiceCaster is pre-loaded to share vids and pics from the phone to Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and Flickr

For folks finding their feature phone not quite up to snuff for social networking, mail and browsing, the Surge looks like a nice entry point into the smartphone market for under $100. I don’t like the 2.5mm headphone jack, but I do appreciate the dedicated buttons on the front of the unit.

Vodafone UK’s latest netbook deal highlights two main differences between the European and American markets. Here we haven’t seen many high-end subsidized netbooks bundled with broadband service. Typically, the deals here include a base model from HP. I’ve called for more choice if we’re going to subsidize netbooks here. In fact, one of the brands I mentioned in that point was Samsung. That’s the brand that Vodafone UK is offering for free. It’s your basic netbook, but the NC10 does offer excellent battery life — upwards of six to seven hours. Just beating out Sprint’s (s) 99-cent deal, this Samsung NC10 is fully subsidized and free, provided you pair it with a two-year data plan. And that illustrates the second difference.

Vodafone UK gives customers two options to gain a free netbook. Both are two-year deals, just like we see here in the U.S. The difference is in the two tiers of pricing and throughput. For a free NC10 netbook, customers can pay 25 pounds ($40.26) a month for 1GB of data or 30 pounds a month for 3GB. We have two tiers here as well, but most folks opt for the second because the first is woefully inadequate. For $39.99 a month, we can nab between 200MB and 250MB a month, depending on the carrier. We can opt for that small sip or we can gulp a 5GB cap for $59.99 a month. There is no in between, and for most folks, it simply makes sense to pay the extra $20 for up to 25 times more monthly throughput.

Not only does the EU have my beloved Tour de France, but it has better mobile broadband deals as well. I think I’m going to move.

Microsoft today announced the start of the Office 2010 preview program. A new, larger group will get to start playing with the next major version of the Office suite next month. This announcement is not a surprise and was widely expected to be made today. The news was accompanied by even more information about the online version of Office, the Office Web Apps. This online version is aimed at competing with Google Docs, Zoho and others. Like most online apps, the Office Web Apps are designed to be run from the cloud, completely in a user’s web browser. The “app in a browser” function of Office Web Apps may make future Google Chrome OS users the big winners, given the timing of both products for next year.

Office Web Apps will be free to Windows Live users, which is hardly surprising given the free nature of Google Docs. The online storage will be supplied by SkyDrive, and Microsoft is not forthcoming on if the apps will be ad-supported. Office Web Apps will be lightweight versions of their full Office suite siblings, and will consist of Word, Excel, PowerPoint and OneNote. The inclusion of an online version of OneNote is exciting, and may offer Microsoft a way to compete with Evernote. Evernote has taken the online notetaking world by storm of late.

While many webworkers and the like have been moving to the cloud in greater numbers, the big winners of the appearance next year of Office Web Apps may ironically be Google Chrome OS users. Chrome OS will no doubt be written to work seamlessly with Google Docs, but the strength of Office in the enterprise cannot be overlooked. It is logical to expect documents created with Office Web Apps to be pretty compatible with the full versions. This could give Office an advantage over Google Docs, something users of the forthcoming Chrome OS could use to their benefit.

It will be interesting to see how Office Web Apps plays out, as far as compatibility with non-Microsoft web browsers is concerned. The online apps will certainly be written to best support Internet Explorer users, but Firefox is now mainstream, so it will likely work fine, too. The Google Chrome browser is a wild card with regards to Microsoft support, as this interview makes clear, so it may face a bumpy road when working with Office Web Apps. Microsoft may have to take some pains to ensure the Web Apps are compatible with Google Chrome, however, to avoid the typical cries of “foul”.

UPDATE: Robert Scoble has posted a number of videos of Office 2010 in action. The last video demonstrates Office Web Apps, and the Microsoft product manager states that they will work in IE, Firefox and Safari.

Windows 7 will be released soon, and it promises to bring an enhanced experience for PCs with digitizers. The Tablet and touch features have generated excitement, especially in the area of multitouch capability. Netbooks and UMPCs with touchscreens are starting to appear in greater numbers, and owners are already planning to install Windows 7 on these devices. Some intrepid folks have already done so, and are discovering that all of the fancy tablet/touch bits don’t automatically come along for the ride. Here’s what I know about the tablet and touch capabilities of Windows 7, along with the requirements to get them going on today’s devices.

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I thought that Microsoft’s Zune HD would be the first portable HD Radio unit for sale, but it wasn’t meant to be. Electronics retailer Best Buy won the race that nobody is watching. Actually, at least one person was watching. Dave Zatz hopped over to his local Best Buy and dropped $50 to get an HD Radio for totable tunes. He bought an Insignia model, which is the “house brand” for Best Buy.

At $50, the NS-HD01 is more of a bare-bones device than a high-end portable. There’s no AC adapter included, for example. To charge the device, you connect it to a computer with the included USB cable. The included earbuds aren’t the highest quality, either. Using a set of third-party headphones might be hit or miss as well, based on Dave’s tests. He had to position the headphone jack just right in order for it to make the proper stereo connection. However, there is a nice armband included, making this a nice unit to accompany you during exercise.

Although I’m tempted, at $50, for higher-quality sound and a greater number of digital radio stations, I’m going to pass. If I could track my running activities with the NS-ND01, like I can with my iPhone, then maybe I’d drop the coin. For now, I’ll let Dave enjoy this one solo.

HD Radio has always appealed to me, but I’m thinking the opportunity for it is passing. I realize not everyone wants to carry a phone or a digital audio player with pre-loaded music, but there are so many other options today: Slacker, Pandora, and even satellite radio. More vehicles are getting configured with easy-to-use auxiliary jacks, USB ports and Bluetooth, too. Is it too late for HD Radio to become a major player?

Lenovo was kind enough to send me two of its most current netbook models, and this video is a tour of both. The S10-2 is as small as netbooks go while retaining full usability, in my view, and the S12 pushes the limits of netbooks with a 12-inch screen.

The video gives an overview of both netbooks and shows the size comparison of the two models. This gives a glimpse into how little additional size and weight you gain with the larger S12. The higher screen resolution of the S12 (1280×800) is a nice benefit for such a small size penalty over the S10-2.

The S10-2 is $350 and the S12 is $499 from Lenovo, so the extra size and screen resolution come at a price.

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 it grows its business. It was a fun experience as always, and I’m appreciative that Randall offered me the opportunity. You can catch the seven-minute spot right here on TechVi to see and hear how Ross and I view the Google Chrome OS news.