Results tagged “davidpogue”

Clay Shirky responds to David Pogue's stance on SOPA and how we shouldn't be so quick to assume Hollywood's legal dogs are savage, rabies-infected hounds:

If their legal arm gets out of control? This is an industry that demands payment from summer camps if the kids sing Happy Birthday or God Bless America, an industry that issues takedown notices for a 29-second home movie of a toddler dancing to Prince. Traditional American media firms are implacably opposed to any increase in citizens' ability to create, copy, save, alter, or share media on our own. They fought against cassette audio tapes, and photocopiers. They swore the VCR would destroy Hollywood. They tried to kill Tivo. They tried to kill MiniDisc. They tried to kill player pianos. They do this whenever a technology increases user freedom over media. Every time. Every single time.

David Pogue breaks down the realities of the new Blackberry PlayBook tablet:

Remember, the primary competition is an iPad -- the same price, but much thinner, much bigger screen and a library of 300,000 apps. In that light, does it make sense to buy a fledgling tablet with no built-in e-mail or calendar, no cellular connection, no videochat, Skype, no Notes app, no GPS app, no videochat, no Pandora radio and no Angry Birds?

You should also know that even now, only days before the PlayBook goes on sale April 19, the software is buggy and still undergoing feverish daily revision. And the all-important BlackBerry Bridge feature is still in beta testing. It's missing important features, like the ability to view e-mail file attachments or click a link in an e-mail.

And:

But -- are you sitting down? -- at the moment, BlackBerry Bridge is the only way to do e-mail, calendar, address book and BlackBerry Messenger on the PlayBook. The PlayBook does not have e-mail, calendar or address book apps of its own. You read that right. R.I.M. has just shipped a BlackBerry product that cannot do e-mail. It must be skating season in hell. (R.I.M. says that those missing apps will come this summer.)

This reminds of grade school - when you realize your book report is due the day of, and you hastily cobble it together with lightly reworded chunks from the encyclopedia.

Netflix to offer movie downloads - this was the next logical step for them. Interesting that the service is proposing to be streaming not downloadable video. They allows them to nicely step around DRM issues, but it also doesn't let people burn their movie to disc...

David Pogue's iPhone review - I'm really starting to dig what this guy has to stay. He's smart and doesn't take himself too seriously - two very good qualities to have.