Category: Tech news

At this morning’s I/O keynote Google’s Vic Gundotra unveiled all the neat features of the Android 2.2, Froyo, but the biggest elephant in the room was Apple and the increasing tensions between the two giants. Gundotra enjoyed several jabs at the iPhone maker, making fun of Apple for not supporting Flash, the relatively slow load time of the iPad, and for trying to control the mobile ecosystem. His opening remarks set the tone: Google doesn’t want a future where one man controls mobile. Hmm, whoever could that be?

Google was trying to articulate a clear message: Apple is closed, we are open. Gundotra must have said the word “open” at least a dozen times. This theme reemerged several times throughout the keynote, at one point, Gundotra turned to the audience and simply said: “It turns out, on the internet, people use Flash….Part of being open means you’re inclusive rather than exclusive.”

Gundotra also used his address as an opportunity to refute previous comments from Steve Jobs, most pointedly, Jobs’ recent claim that: “on a mobile device search hasn’t happened. Search is not where it’s at, people are not searching on a mobile device like they do on the desktop.” Not so, according to Gundotra, he announces that Google has seen a 5x growth in search in the past two years — across in all smart phones. “People love Google search,” Gundotra says.

Of course, the iPad and the new iPhone operating system were not safe from Gundotra’s fire. During several demos, Gundotra put the iPad’s speed to the test by matching it against the Android 2.2. Surprise, surprise, the Android 2.2 consistently outperformed, often by a significant degree. Gundotra showed an iPad running Nickelodeon, which hung on an orange screen, while the Android 2.2 powered device zipped through. He says he showed his daughter the iPad with Nickelodeon, and when she saw the blank orange screen, “She said daddy can I play with your Android.”

Google also showcased its new cloud/messaging API, which will let a developer send a message to trigger an Android intent. “This is not a push notification API designed to compensate for a lack of functionality like multitasking in the OS,” Gundotra said with a slight smile. Oh, snap.

Updating with the best zings.

On Android’s upcoming over-the-air music download capabilities versus Apple’s tethered syncing: “We discovered something really cool, it’s called the Internet.”

Today at Google I/O, Vic Gundotra introduced Froyo, aka Android 2.2. But he also went a bit beyond Froyo. Coming soon, is a way to download an app through the Android Market over the web — and have it automatically download on your Android devices too. But that’s not all. Gundotra also showed off a new section of the Market — Music. Yes, an iTunes competitor on the web from Google.

Details are sparse at the moment, but here’s how this basically works. You go to the Market on the web, find a song you like, click the download button, and just like with apps, the song starts to download on your Android devices. So it’s iTunes, over the web, with auto-syncing. No word on who the partners are for this, what the prices will be, etc. Undoubtedly, we’ll hear more about that soon.

And that’s not all.

Gundotra also announced that Google recently made an aquisition: Simplify Media. Using this technology, Google will soon offer a desktop app that will give you access to all of your (DRM-free) media on your Android devices remotely.

Google just announced that it bought Simplify Media, a startup that offers software that lets you share your iTunes music across platforms, including the web.

The software lets you share your photos and music using programs like iTunes, iPhoto and Windows Media player. According to the startup’s site Simplify Media “connects people directly with their content, without the hassles of synching or uploading all their files. Simplify users can also share their personal media with family and close friends in a private, secure group.”

It appears that that deal may have taken place in March, when the company announced a “new direction” on its blog, discontinuing its software to users and removing its iPhone app from Apple’s App store. Clearly the new direction was over to Google headquarters in Mountain View. Terms of the deal have not been disclosed.

Google VP Vic Gundotra said that Simplify’s technology will be used to offer a desktop app that will give you access to all of your (DRM-free) media on your Android devices remotely, using Google’s new iTunes competitor on the web.

Today at Google I/O Vic Gundotra made a big revelation. Last year, Google was activating 30,000 Android phones a day. The past February, that number jumped to 60,000. Today, Google is now activating over 100,000 Android phones a day.

Android was the second best-selling smartphone this quarter, Gundotra says. They are only behind RIM — and yes, ahead of that other rival. Gundotra also pointed out the stat from AdMob that Android was first in terms of web and app usage among smartphones.

And that’s not all. Gundotra also announced that there were now over 50,000 apps available for the platform. And there are some 180,000 developers working on the platform.

There are now over 60 compatible Android devices from 21 OEMs in 48 countries. The devices are spread across 59 carriers.

Who is checking in to Google I/O and what are they using to do it?

Buzzzy, the search engine that started out as a Google Buzz interface, is busily adding features and the latest is location. This maps a person’s geo-location data to events or locations.

So it can look at where and when someone uses a location enabled device to tag them and provide context. The obvious choice today is anyone at the Moscone West center in SF during the Google I/O event. Anyone there will get tagged as an I/O attendee and then tracked. Check it out here. So who is winning, Foursquare or Gowalla… or what?

The second day of Google’s I/O conference is kicking off, and we’re quite certain there’s going to be some major news about both Android and Google TV. As with yesterday’s keynote, the event will be live streamed on YouTube — we can’t embed the stream, but you can watch it right here. I’ll be live blogging the keynote; my notes are below. Note that most quotes will be paraphrased.

Vic Gundotra has taken the stage.

Talking about when he first met Andy Rubin and his skepticism. Andy said we need an open mobile OS. He said there’s a future we don’t want, where one man controls mobile. Shows an album cover for 1984.

Over 60 Android devices so far. Last year we reported we were getting 30K units a day activated. In Feb we announced 60K units today. Our daily activations is now past 100K a day. We are now second in the US in smarphone sales, only to RIM. According to AdMob data we’re first in total web and app usage.

When we launched Google Navigation 6 months ago, we set a milestone for 1 billion miles navigation with Google Navigation. We’ve surpassed that.

There are some who say people don’t use Google search on smartphones. We’ve seen a 5x growth in search in the past two years in all smart phone categories. “People love Google search”. He is taking direct shots at things Steve Jobs has previously said.

We’ve passed 50,000 applications.

Today we’re announcing the release of Android 2.2, Froyo.

What’s in Froyo?

a) Speed
Dalvik VM has been fast, efficient and automatic. But we can do even better. In Fryo we’ve added Just-In-Time compilation 2x-5x application speed boost on existing hardware.

b)New enterprise features. Now Microsoft Exchange friendly — auto-discovery, integration with global address book. Security policies. GAL lookup. Also new APIs for device management.

c) New services for developers. Application data backup API. In the past Android would backup the apps. But your personal data did not. Starting with Froyo we’ll provide a n API that moves that data with the application.

New API cloud/device messaging API. “This is not a push notification API designed to compensate for a lack of functionality like multitasking in the OS” (Zing!). As a dev you can send message to server and do things like collapse similar messages, handle latency. Can do things so a message can trigger Android intent.

Example-If you’re browsing maps on the web. Hit ‘Send to phone’ — instead of sending an SMS, it actually kicks you into the Maps app on the Android device. Send a link from the phone to the device. It opens up the browser, opens right up to the article. Don’t have to open anything else. This looks really powerful.

Announcing: Tethering and portable hotspot (we broke this news last week). Demoing the hotspot. Enable the hotspot, give it a name. Tethering hotspot active.. Now saying “let’s go to a device that doesn’t have that connectivity. How about the iPad”.

Browser: 2x-3x Javascript performance boost. V8 for Android (The JS engine from Chrome is now on Android).

Showing a JS speed demo where Nexus One does laps around iPad browser. “I really wonder if we’ll be able to get that in the App Store. Oh, it’s a web app. How great is that?”

HTML5 and Beyond. Orientation, camera, speech. Wouldn’t it be great if you could access that from the browser. We’re going to show something beyond Froyo. Showed a browser based maps app, where you can rotate the phone and the map rotates (the browser can access the digital compass). Also a Buzz demo that can access camera from the browser.

Showing voice commands (which Android has had for a while). What’s coming next is the ability to analyze human intentions. “Call Fifth Floor Restaurant”. Going to be many more intentions.

Web app -Translate. Microphone in the web app. Voice commands work in it.

Announcing Flash Player 10.1 public beta. AIR Developer Pre-Release. “It turns out that on the Internet, people use Flash. Part of being open means you’re inclusive rather than exclusive.” My daughter picked up her iPad and this is what she saw on Nickelodeon site — and saw a blank orange site. Worked on Android device.

Android Market. We’ve listened carefully. On average we see users are installing more than 40 apps on their device. First new feature. Search apps. Can quickly just search through the apps on your phone. Also improved search so developers can plug into search framework. Can search through data of an app (showing demo using Mint’s app).

Another issue — people want to move apps not just to internal memory but to SD card. We’ve enabled that in a secure way. We’ve enabled this in a secure way. And the user never has to worry about it — it is done automatically (though they can move an app to SD card if they want).

Update All – Today you have to update each up individually. Now you can just hit “Update All”. We’ve gone one step further. Now with user permission and allow automatically updating.

Announcing – Application error reports. Find and fix bugs faster. Now users can submit bug reports. Developers can see entire stack trace of what happened (loud applause — the devs really like this).

Sneak Peek: What’s next for Market?
A new Android Marketplace, accessible from a browser in a PC. Can browse apps look at reviews. Can sign in, can see every Android device you have direct from the browser. Can browse to an App. Now on other system you browse to it, tether to it, download to PC, then sync it. Hit confirm and the app is send over the air to the Android device. (Sound familiar?)

And music. How about some music. Can send music using the internet, OTA. Looks like an Android music store. With over the air music sync. Very cool.

We recently acquired a company called Simplify Media. Lets you at home run a simple piece of software makes all non drm software at home available to Android device. Say you’re on you’re Android device. Make home library available to Android device as a stream. Streaming music from your iTunes library to Android. This is huge.

Advertising
This is our tenth year of advertising, we know a lot about it. We’ve learned if you want a healthy ecosystem of advertising, you need advertisers, and we have hundreds of thousands of it. We’re not new at this game “we’re not working with a handful of partners and charging them a million each to be part of a program” (another Apple zinger). Flexible formats. Advertising needs to be measured. Useful tools (analytics, adwords, adsense, doubleclick). Showing off formats. Announcing new – expandable ad format. Users if at all possible like to stay within the application. Ad expends right out, slides back in. Expandable format available today. Another one. Can be not just display but also rich media (has embedded movie). Another expandable ad. Very popular add format – click to call. Leverage fact that user gives permission to use location. Direct TV wants to make special offer to customers in SF. Click to call. Another ad format – Expandable format. Includes a map and directions and click to call.

Another example. Click on ad, full screen immersive ad. Trailers, multimedia. Tap at bottom can purchase. Ad was served by medialets through doubleclick. That’s openness.

Everyone at conference can sign up at Google.com/mobileads

Now showing Sprint HTC Evo 4G. Google is making this available to everyone here. Loud clapping.

“Thank you for supporting Android. Thank you for supporting openness and choice”.

Now for the next section
Rishi Chandra has taken the stage. I’m going to introduce you to Google TV. “A new platform that we believe will change the future of television”.

$70 billion is annual ad spend in US alone on TV. 4 billion TV users worldwide.

Many people have tried to bring web/TV worlds again. But still pretty limited adoption.

Three reasons/limitations
– They are trying to dumb down/recreate the web. It’s WAP all over again.
-They’re all closed.
-Many solutions make you change between TV/web. People will choose TV, that’s the experience they know.

We believe answer takes the best of both TV and web and bring it into a single experience.

Google TV: “Where TV meets web. Web meets TV”.

Spend less time finding, more time watching content. Control and personalize what you watch. Make your tv content more interesting. More than just a tv.

Demo.

-Turns on TV. We’re watching TV. Can change channel, access DVR, use existing remote to make that happen. Vincent (demoer) is using new remote control. Partners creating optimized controls specifically for Google TV.

First thing you do is you want to find something to watch. Generally you use ‘the guide’. It’s not good for searching, browsing through a lot of channels. What if we rethought navigation of TV. Search box that takes you where you want to go.

And.. after an awkward demo glitch..

Search box takes you where you want to go. Type in MSNBC. see mixed results from TV and web. Tunes you directly to the channel. Now instant access to all favorite channes. How about a show – 30 Rock. You’ll see a future result. If you have a DVR integrated, you can record direct from the search box. Now instant access to all favorite shows. You can do more. Search the entire web.

Run a search for House. See all the content on TV and on the web. House is coming up on USA and Fox. Episodic content. Now we can enable users to have a single experience across both. Can record in future on TV. Or can do it on a site. Clicked on Amazon.com. Goes direct to Amazon’s page. Transition from TV to web is totally seamless. Go to AMazon. Can buy the episode or play the trailer. Homescreen is quick launcher to all content and apps (looks similar to Boxee). Can show Netflix instant queue. Your suggestions.

The web has more content than just favorite TV and shows. There’s been explosion of online TV. YouTube.com — can go directly to YouTube. We can go much further than YouTube. We can allow it to be much more personalized. Example. My son likes Elmo on Sesame street. Sesamestreet has all this content on their site. I can filter than content based on my interested. Can search for just Elmo videos.

Can type in “2010 state of the union”. Can head to the web. Get text. Can click and go direct to Whitehouse.gov and play the video. This is big because I can access the content whenever I want. I am not constrained by thinking in terms of channels and shows.

Can take TV feed, put in Picture in Picture mode. While you’re watching, can pull up the box score while you’re watching the game. Can track what’s happening in the game while also browsing web.

So far we’ve only talked about video. But there’s a whole lot of other entertainment experiences. Music, games, social. Can look at flickr. Watch Flickr slideshow. “My TV just became best photo viewer in the house”.

By bringing the best of what TV has to offer, we can create an experience that is most comprehensive/accessible entertainment experience out there.

Spec – four components. Wifi/ethernet built in. Going to connect existing cable/satellite box to Google TV box using regular HDMI cable. Google TV comes with IR blaster. Also we’ve implemented special IP protocol b/w our box and Dish settop boxes, gives tight integration. That’s how I could do one click recording. Plenty of processing power. Going to be GPU for 2d/3d graphics. Hi def. And surround sound. Google TV input devices — will all include keyboard and pointing device. Can use Android phone. paired with Google TV device over Wifi. Can speak to TV. “Say Good Morning America”. It searched on Google TV. Can have multiple remotes paired. Can be watching something on phone, send that to TV.

This is just the beginning. We’re going to publish IP remote control protocol so devs can build own apps on device of your choice be it PC, smartphone or tablet to enhance experience.

Google TV has three components to stack. First is Android. We are built on 2.1 and will be upgrading. We can do OTA updates. Second is browser. We are Google Chrome. We needed full web compatible browser. And Flash 10.1.

Android portion – Wouldn’t it be cool if I could take favorite mobile app and have it work on TV? Soon you can.

Mobile version of Android Market. Searching for Pandora. Pandora didn’t do anything beyond their normal app, but tiw roks on Google TV. My TV can be much more than a TV. Another cool feature. Taking the mobile version of Android Market.

Brittany Bohnet takes the stage to help demo.

Now from the computer, browsing applications from market. Can install an app to Google TV directly from the Android Market website.

Ambarish Kenghe- Google TV PM.
Talking about how devs can be involved.

YouTube’s Hunter Walk now on stage. YouTube LeanBack – take entire YouTUbe corpus and turn it into experience you can lean back and enjoy. Can see channels, rentals.

Bohnet is back – Google Listen coming to TV.
Can access queue, search, etc. Explore — lets you discover new video podcast.

Can add captions in any language to the TV you’re watching (very cool).

We need help of entire TV ecosystem to push platform forward. Google TV open source will be open source into both Android and Chrome source trees.

How is this coming to market?

Partnered with Sony. Will launch full line of integrated TVs and a Blu Ray player.
Second Logitech – will launch a companion box.
Intel will be powering chipset.
All coming in Fall 2010
Partnered with Dish network for enhanced experience.
Partnered with Best Buy to distribute.

Early 2011 – Android Market, Google TV SDK . Summer 2011 is when it will be open sourced.

Google CEO Eric Schmidt on stage –
20 years ago sat in equivalent of this room and people talked about integrating television guide with TV> 10 years ago WebTV, other companies said maybe we should find a way to integrate way you use TV/web on TV. we’ve been waiting a long time for today.

Bringing out partner CEOs –
Paul Otellini, CEO of Intel

Howard Stringer, CEO of Sony.

Gerald Quindlen – Logitech

Charles Ergen – CEO, Dish Network

Brian Dunn, CEO of Best Buy

Shantanu Narayen – CEO of Adobe

Schmidt – What is so special about Atom processor?
Otellini – It is a version of Atom, bring full processing capability of Intel. Performance of netbook, but put a bunch of specialized circuitry designed for HD video, other things consumers are expected to do. This is one of the things we foresaw when we developed Atom processor.

Schmidt – What is special about Flash/this platform that makes this more interactive?
Narayen – We’re working on Flash 10.1. Taken into account performance, make sure it’s optimized.

Schmidt – Are people going to go out and buy new TVs?
Stringer – When you put all of this into world’s first Internet TV it becomes seamless. The opportunities are just mind boggling. When we launch this in the Fall…

Quindlen – We’ve been innovating in Harmony remote area. We feel the biggest opportunity in the living room is combination of TV content and the web and bringing it together in open platform.

Ergen – Seamless experience is going to be more seamless with Dish than any other video provider. People will still watch Super Bowl, etc.

Schmidt – Brian, as I understand the industry, the profits come at Christmas. How do you see this playing out? Do you see this driving new traffic, new pricepoint?
Dunn- We share your enthusiasm for the fact that we’re a survivor. We have a saying that this is the most important holiday season in the history of the company, and that’s true every year. You’re right, it’s not just a new aisle. It’s a new category — the smart TV. I fortunate enough to get an in-depth demo. When you see what you can do and experience it… “I need one”. Right now I need one. I do think it is going to be broadly accepted. Because it does address how people in an ad hoc fasion enjoy consuming media.

Stringer – You hit the nail on the head. It’s evolutionary. It’s upgradable. It’s active TV. It’s proactive. It’s a very big deal.

Dunn – You can personalize it, it is your experience.

Schmidt – The reason we wanted to make this announcement here is that we need you, the developers to take this platform and do things that we have not yet conceived of. We have the tools, volume, economics, scale. I think to really not just define TV in a new way, but ultimately to define how people entertain themselves.

Mobile social network MocoSpace, which has over 11 million registered users, has made its first foray into the world of smartphone applications with an Android app.

MocoSpace, which launched in 2006, was previously only mobile web-based and prided itself on its users mainly being non-techies who don’t own an iPhone, Android or BlackBerry device. The site makes money with its virtual currency and through advertising and mainly reaches the 18 to 34 age demographic. And MocoSpace claims to generate 3 billion pages per month, with users mobile users accessing the site over 5 times per day on average.

The functionality of the Android app is fairly simple. It allows for live chat with friends currently on app or on the mobile website, photo uploads, profile viewing and commenting and message notifications. The company decided to launch an app on the Android platform first because number of Android users accessing the MocoSpace mobile website had spiked by 40% over the past six months and is growing faster than other devices, including the iPhone and Blackberry.

Though not nearly as popular as Facebook or MySpace, MocoSpace is now one of the largest mobile-only social networks. It should be interesting to see if the network can create a userbase from smartphone apps.

Highflying stream reader TweetDeck just raised a $3 million Series B round led by its biggest investor, betaworks. That brings the total capital raised by the company to $5.3 million. Ron Conway and Danny Rimer also invested in this round, as did all existing seed investors, including the Accelerator Group, Roger Ehrenberg, and Howard Lindzon.

TweetDeck is the most popular Twitter client by one estimate, with more than 15 million downloads so far. Over the past year, it has been moving beyond Twitter, adding streams from Facebook and MySpace. And just a few minutes ago, it released its latest update, which incorporates streams from Google Buzz, Foursqaure, and more. It is now truly a general stream reader.

TweetDeck is also working on an HTML5 Web browser version of its stream reader, which is currently an “internal research project,” according to CEO Iain Dodsworth.

Below is a video demo of the new TweetDeck features. Don’t you just love the way those Brits say “Google Buzz”? The best feature though has to be how easy TweetDeck makes it to do a fake check-in via Foursquare.

I’ve been interested in gadget manufacturing for a while now and, as I reported a few months ago, things are pretty bad but they’ve been worse. Now, however, we’re seeing clusters of suicides at Foxconn as well as an undercover “report” from Foxconn’s “Hell Factory.” I’m calling bull.

First, consider that Foxconn has 400,000 employees in Shenzhen alone. Cleveland, Ohio has 478,403 residents as of the 2000 census and I suspect that’s gone down. You’re not amazed by the number of suicides in Cleveland, right? It’s par for the course. People go nuts in Cleveland, even though they have a great meat market and the Cleveland Clinic is really nice. People don’t want to live, sometimes, right?

Read more…

Product: Stylus Tough 8010

Manufacturer: Olympus

Wired Rating: 6

Here at Wired, we can be rough on our cameras. We break them — a lot. So when Olympus updated its Stylus Tough series with the 8010, we knew we had to test its claims of ruggedized prowess.

The tough exterior is built to withstand a 6.6-foot drop, 220 pounds of pressure and 33 feet of water submersion. It lived up to those claims, over and over again. We tossed the shooter from heights often greater than 10 feet, drowned it in the deep end of the pool at the Y and even ran over it with a car a couple of times. The frame sustained minor dings and scratches, but still shot pics just as well as the day it arrived at Wired HQ.

Unfortunately, the overall performance is just mediocre. Topping out at 14 megapixels, we expected photos to have good clarity, excellent color saturation and little noise. Instead we got washed out images (the flash is a bit aggressive) that could sometimes be fuzzier than the keynote at Furry-Con.

And the shutter craaaaawls. We could handle the cam’s 6-second boot-up time, but the 3-second shutter lag between pics is inexcusable.

That said, the 8010 offers a slew of shooting options that add extra dimensions that many rugged cameras lack. HD video is clear and bright, and image stabilization works nicely in even the most over-caffeinated hands. Several rudimentary photo-editing options exist on the camera but are buried in a menu system that needs a redesign.

If you’re looking for a camera that can withstand repeated drops on pavement, immersion in water and close encounters with a set of Michelins, the 8010 is a solid investment. Just don’t expect to squeeze Pulitzer prize-worthy photos from it.

WIRED The Chuck Norris of point-and-shoots — virtually indestructible. More functions than we know what to do with. No casing needed to take pictures under the sea.

TIRED Shutter is prohibitively slow. Photo quality not on par with similar rugged cameras. Menu system needs a serious overhaul.

Product: Office 2010 for Windows

Manufacturer: Microsoft

Wired Rating: 7

Three years have passed since the last version of Office was released, so naturally it’s time for Microsoft to convince you that you need a new one.

Office 2010 arrives, heralding more than 100 new and improved features. The suite on the whole is compelling but, in typical Office fashion, has more software than any sane person could possibly need. It also boasts integration with Microsoft’s much-ballyhooed Web Apps, a potential Google Docs competitor that lets you create and edit documents using a free web-based interface.

The overall look and feel of Office 2010 is similar to Office 2007, so if you’ve become accustomed to the “ribbon” (Microsoft says its studies show it saves users lots of time and prevents mistakes from being made), you’ll have no trouble transitioning to Office 2010. In fact, the ribbon has now been extended to the entire Office lineup, and it can finally be customized, a long overdue feature.

Outlook is the most upgraded weapon in the Office arsenal. The biggest switch is the new Conversation View, and once you start using it you’ll wonder how you ever got on without it. Put simply, it lumps all replies to a message into a single item in the message list, eliminating the inbox full of “Re:” this and “Re:” that. If you need it, a twisty lets you see every message in the thread with a single click. Sick of it? Click the Ignore button and you’ll never see a reply to that thread again. It’s more intelligent and more capable than anything Gmail currently has.

The little things Microsoft has done to Outlook are just as welcome, like a much richer to-do bar (the rightmost pane), better search and Quick Steps, which are basically e-mail management macros built into the app. The social networking built into Outlook is, for now, not even half-baked — it’s maybe quarter-baked — but it’s a sign of interesting things to come once the proper Facebook and MySpace hooks are rolled out. On the other hand, Outlook’s integrated spam filter is still not quite fully cooked. It’s hard to believe that after all these years Microsoft still can’t nail a decent spam filter. Our advice? Microsoft should simply give up and retire it at this point.

This edition has substantial PowerPoint upgrades, most visibly with an integrated but rudimentary video-editing system right in the app. Dropping a movie into a slide show is now easy, and while you can’t do complicated edits like dubbing in multiple audio tracks or crossfading from one film to another, it’s probably good enough for the average PowerPoint user. Basic image editing — also inline with your document — is baked into the whole Office suite, too, and it’s powerful enough for the way most users will need to work with it.

Microsoft perhaps overreaches with its attempt to outdo third-party conferencing tools like WebEx. You can now take PowerPoint to the web with a feature that lets you turn presentations into web-viewable slide shows using any browser. It works as advertised, but only if you save your file to a Windows Live folder and the people you want to share with all have Windows Live logins — a real obstacle. Performance is lackluster as well.

Word and Excel aren’t fundamentally different from previous Office iterations, though changes to a few longstanding keyboard shortcuts may frustrate power users. The overall look is more polished though, and upgrades like the Backstage View, which gives you more visible prompts to remove personal information, revision marks and the like from documents you are distributing, are helpful.

If there’s one major problem with Office 2010, it’s printing. Microsoft has taken pains to improve print preview across the suite with more realistic WYSIWYG views, but this has come at the expense of speed. You can’t keep from previewing a document before printing, and rendering a graphics-heavy e-mail can take up to 15 seconds before you can even push the Print button. For busy admin types, this is a deal killer.

What’s worse is that in Outlook, printing is erratically implemented, so if you’re printing an e-mail you already have open in preview mode, sometimes Office will print a list view of the entire email folder by default. On the whole, printing in this version of Office is such a step back, I consider it fundamentally broken.

Microsoft’s attempt to integrate the web into Office 2010 is an effort so busted one wonders how it got this far. The idea with Web Apps is that anyone with a Windows Live account can view and edit documents saved to a SkyDrive or SharePoint account online, all within a web browser. Web Apps theoretically give you a stripped-down but functional (and cost-free) way to view and edit these files, even if you don’t have Office 2010 installed so you can collaborate from anywhere.

Unfortunately, Web Apps won’t be challenging Google Docs (or any other online document editor) anytime soon, as it’s uncommonly convoluted and buggy. Once you jump through all the hurdles to share a doc (even saving a file to SkyDrive is a pain), more often than not, it just won’t open for editing, or you’ll be prompted to re-save them in a different format. You can open Word docs and view them, but you can’t edit them — the mother of all WTFs. And the frequent prompts to install Microsoft Silverlight won’t be winning Web Apps many friends, either.

Ultimately, if your collaborator has any version of Office, just sending an attachment is infinitely more convenient and quicker. Sure, sometimes the system actually works, but there’s zero polish here: Even something as simple as using Outlook to send a file link to a recipient’s Hotmail account invariably results in a broken URL that has to be reconstructed by hand. This is all supposed to make sharing files easier, but Microsoft has somehow managed to make it far more complicated than you can imagine.

Should you buy Office 2010? It’s a compelling application suite with some nice new features, but if you’re using any version of Office produced this century, there’s nothing earth-shattering enough to justify its gargantuan price tag. And the serious flaws with spam filtering and Web Apps is more than disappointing.

Still, if you’re hungry for some of the software’s collaboration tools (and maybe your company is picking up the tab) you might want to consider an upgrade. Otherwise, we’d hold off for now.

WIRED Integrated video and photo features throughout the suite. High-end features (like voicemail transcription) available to Exchange users. Outlook upgrades make it one of the best offline e-mail managers on the market.

TIRED More bloated than the Goodyear blimp. Printing is slow and buggy. Useless spam filter even after a decade of development. Occasional system crashes. Still feels like spending hundreds of dollars for the privilege of sending e-mail and typing letters.

Product: Rebel T2i

Manufacturer: Canon

Wired Rating: 7

At first glance Canon’s newest entry-level DSLR, the Rebel T2i, might trick you into thinking that it’s merely a repackaged version of its predecessor.

That’s a mistake.

This new Rebel definitely has a cause. It’s been hopped up under the hood with a re-designed 18-megapixel image sensor, a Digic 4 processor and a 3:2 aspect ratio LCD (it’s about friggin’ time).

It’s also got high-end, full HD movie-making capabilities in a variety of flavors and frame rates, making this camera a great way to flex your filmmaking muscles.

The T2i’s still-image performance gets a boost from the 63-zone metering system (almost twice as robust as the T1i) that yields quicker more accurate exposures and a faster 3.7 fps frame rate. The aforementioned Digic 4 image processor has noticeably improved white-balance fidelity, which is an absolute must when shooting video with the T2i.

Canon also added creative flexibility by bumping up the exposure compensation from +/- 2 stops all the way up to +/- 5. Like its competitors, Canon has bolstered its noise-reduction technologies and the T2i keeps things fairly tight up to ISO 1600 with acceptably sharp prints up to ISO 3200 (assuming you’re willing to do some post-production manipulation).

If you’re keen to explore moviemaking, then this Canon is a good place to start. The new image sensor and processor pave the way for full high-def 1080p recording with the option for manual controls (you can switch to Auto with the swipe of a finger, too) so you’re able to achieve a very film-like shallow depth of field at 24 fps.

Like its big brother, the 7D, the Rebel T2i has a dedicated video Start/Stop button on the back of the body, so when you’re ready to shoot moving pictures, the button you need is within thumb’s reach.

In spite of the vast motion picture possibilities of the T2i, let’s be clear from the get-go: These newly hybridized DSLRs aren’t your typical flip-screen, handheld, point-and-shoot videocams. The T2i and its ilk are feature-laden for sure, but are truly meant for a more considered approach. Oh, you can definitely run and gun with it, but the video and audio results may disappoint (even with an image stabilized lens like the 18mm-55mm f3.5-5.6 IS in this kit).

To give yourself a better shot at superior footage with smooth pans, really steady shots and clear sound, we’d recommend using a tripod with a fluid head and an external shotgun microphone. And if you get really serious there are scads of aftermarket rigs for better handheld operation.

But if a feature-rich DSLR with a low barrier of entry is what you’re on the hunt for, you could do a lot worse than the T2i.

WIRED Image-stabilized kit lens. Three-inch 3:2 aspect ratio LCD with a slightly greater viewing angle than the old version. Dedicated Live View/Movie Record button. Quick Control Screen. External microphone jack. Quicktime H.264 video format. SD memory-card slot handles speedy SDXC memory cards. AV output and HDMI connections. Video in 1080p at 30 and 24 fps; 720p at 60 fps, 640 x 480 at 60 fps and VGA crop.

TIRED Lack of quick control wheel (you have to get Canon’s 7D or a higher model to have one). Bothersome autofocus assist flash. Build quality not as robust as feature set.

Product: Kin One and Kin Two

Manufacturer: Microsoft

Wired Rating: 0

Verizon’s newest phones, the Microsoft-designed and Sharp-manufactured Kin One and Kin Two, put social media front and center.

More capable than cheap, feature-sparse dumbphones, but quite a few IQ points shy of being true smartphones, the Kins are the latest entrants in a new space where traditional phone features are almost an afterthought, and it’s all about the Twitter and Facebook updates.

Palm’s Web OS, Motorola’s Blur interface, and other Android-based phone operating systems have been doing this kind of social media integration for more than a year. Kin just takes that idea and improves on it.

On the home screen (what Microsoft calls the Loop), a pleasingly formatted stack of randomly sized squares shows the latest updates from your networks. Your friends’ avatars are shown large, filling the background of each text update, making the Loop into a photo album as well as news feed. It’s hard to look at it without smiling.

Flick the touchscreen to the left to reveal your favorite contacts, swipe the other way to access a vertical stack of applications (text messaging, phone calls, web browsing, music and more.) A camera button activates a still/video camera function, and a Back button on the phone’s face takes you back to whatever screen you were looking at before. And that’s about it: The phone’s interface is amazingly uncluttered, friendly looking and minimalist.

The system still has some glitches to work out. As a Twitter client, it’s only half baked, since you can’t view @ replies, search or post photos. Similarly, Facebook features are limited to showing or posting status updates, though you can post photos. The phone will easily connect with a Gmail account to display your e-mail, but won’t let you access your Gmail contacts. Hotmail or Windows Live user? You’re in luck, the Kin is well-integrated with those services.

YouTube videos won’t play at all on the Kin, there’s no map application, and even though the “Bing Near Me” search button helps find nearby restaurants and cafes, it relies on a browser interface, not a map: Clunky.

Overall, the Kin OS is promising, entertaining and — despite some obvious glitches — fairly well-suited to its target audience of social media addicts: in other words, tweens. How does the hardware stack up? Read on.

Kin One

The smaller of the two, the Kin One is a petite, rounded square of plastic with a tiny screen and a keyboard that slides out from underneath. It’s almost impossibly cute and surprisingly functional for a phone that could easily be mistaken for a compact.

The touchscreen is just 1.5 inches tall by 2 inches wide, but its resolution (240 x 320 pixels) is up to the task of displaying your slice of the digital world — at least, that part of it that is posted in 160 characters or less.

A 5-megapixel camera (with a tiny LED light for illumination) takes OK pictures, though it had some trouble focusing on closeup objects in our tests.

The keyboard, though puny, is surprisingly easy to use. One mystery: The bottom, keyboard part of the phone’s body protrudes a half-centimeter beyond the screen portion on the bottom and the top edges of the phone. Why the designers didn’t just make the screen a little larger and go for a perfectly flush look is a puzzler.

The company claims its batteries will last for more than eight days on standby, and in our tests, it was about exhausted after a full day of heavy use.

For $50 with a two-year contract, the Kin One has a temptingly small sticker price, but don’t be fooled: The contract demands a minimum of $70 per month for voice and data service, which means your total cost will be at least $3,410. That’s a steep price for keeping your kids up-to-date with the latest on Facebook and Twitter.

But if all you want is a tiny, compact social communications device, and you’ve got a deep pocketbook, the Kin One is an adorable choice. We’re looking forward to seeing more phones like it.

WIRED Super pocket-friendly size and weight (4.1 ounces). Cute as a button. Surprisingly usable keyboard. Built-in FM tuner. Extremely responsive touchscreen.

TIRED Screen too small for much reading or web browsing. Autofocus problems, especially on closeups. Video recording is only standard definition. Doesn’t integrate with Google contacts or calendar. Limited Twitter capabilities.

$50 (after $100 mail-in rebate, with 2-year contract)

Kin Two

The Kin Two, with its 3.5-inch, 480-by-320-pixel display, isn’t particularly innovative in its design or features. It does what Microsoft is known for best: Come into the game late and copy an idea well enough to make it cheaper and sometimes, just sometimes a little better.

When it comes to the hardware, the Kin Two proves you get what you pay for. The run-of-the-mill design feels cheap. The 4.8-ounce phone doesn’t have a solid body, the plastic casing is flimsy and the keys on the slide-out QWERTY keyboard aren’t soft or easy to peck on.

But what the phone lacks in looks, it does make up in technical artillery. The Nvidia Tegra processor is zippy, the touchscreen is smooth and the 8-megapixel camera, with an LED flash, delivers some good photos in low light. Unlike the Kin One, it can shoot HD video.

With a larger body comes more screen real estate and a larger keyboard, and that makes the Kin Two potentially more powerful than its little sister. The lack of an onscreen keyboard is a surprising omission, leaving you with no alternative but to flip the phone to the landscape mode if you want to type anything.

Overall, the Kin Two lacks the panache of the tiny, squarish Kin One, however, and invites comparison with smarter phones in the same form factor, like Motorola’s Devour, Backflip and Droid, and Samsung’s Behold II.

Like the Kin One, the Kin Two requires a two-year voice and data contract with a $70 per month minimum, bringing its total cost to $3,460. Unless you’re some sort of iced out playa ballin’ out of control, you’re better off buying your progeny a feature phone and making them use SMS like all the other kids.

WIRED Free and automatic browser-based phone backup. Easy sharing of photos, videos and web pages.

TIRED Lack of apps and games. No easy way to access maps. El cheap-o design. No calendar or alarm. No onscreen keyboard.

$100 (after $100 mail-in rebate, with 2-year contract)

Product: HiFiMan HM-801 Audio Player

Manufacturer: Head-Direct

Wired Rating: 8

It used to be there were only two ways to improve the sound quality on your portable music player: Ditch the shoddy included earbuds for real headphones, or hook in a headphone amplifier.

Now there’s a third option, in the form of the HiFiMan HM-801 Audio Player.

This is, without a doubt, the first audiophile-worthy portable digital audio player I’ve encountered in the past 13 years of covering portable audio technology. Sure, some players have had slightly better sound than the iPod, but none could really deliver sound the way sharp-eared audio purists desire. (We’re talking about people who own gold-tipped connection cables and headphones that cost more than your laptop.)

But the HiFiMan delivers audio that even the snootiest sound snob will find little to gripe with. It does this with a first-of-its-kind preamp (swappable if there’s another preamp your ears desire) and the support of not only standard formats (MP3, AAC, WMA, OGG), but multiple lossless formats (APE, WMA, FLAC). There’s even 24-bit resolution and a 96-kHz sampling rate for FLAC files.

That means HiFiMan not only plays lossless files that sound as good as CDs but also 24-bit files that sound better than CDs, with much wider frequency and dynamic ranges. That equates to reproducing very high pitches (even ones outside the human hearing range, which some say colors the sound we can hear), and music with more gradations in volume that allow dynamic nuances to shine through.

HiFiMan connects to your computer via USB (16-bit 48 kHz) or home stereo system with its digital coaxial input (16-bit 44.1 kHz or 24-bit 96 kHz). Bonus: It can double as an excellent home headphone amplifier through its Burr-Brown PCM1704U digital-to-analog converter.

Paired with high-quality headphones, the HiFiMan sounds better than an iPod Classic, reputedly the best-sounding model Apple makes, even when playing the same files. We perceived no hiss or distortion, backing up the strong audio specs (102-dB signal-to-noise ratio) and everything from deep bass frequencies to ultrahigh cymbals sounded clearer, punchier. Sonically, it’s drastically better than the iPod in every conceivable way.

We squeezed just over seven hours out of the HiFiMan playing a combination MP3s, lossless files and 24-bit FLAC files. If that’s not enough juice, you can pick up a spare battery for another $80. Also worth mentioning is the clean analog volume attenuator that allows smooth, precise control of sound.

Now the bad news: This thing costs $790. By audiophile standards that’s a pittance but for the uninitiated that’s plain crazy, especially for a rather homely device with a button-driven interface. Oh yeah, the device has no on-board memory — hard drives cause too much audio interference — so you’ll have to supply your own SD cards to store your tunes. Forget about popping this monster in your pants either; at 4.4 x 3.1 x 1 inches, it’s a bit too big for pockets. A velvet bag and a mini-briefcase come with it for transportation, but who wants to tote something around that qualifies as carry-on luggage?

But the most significant reason you might not want to drop nearly 800 bones on the HiFiMan is that your ears simply might not care enough. Sound quality is a game of decreasing returns, and some people don’t get the same charge out of ultraclean, expansive, dynamic, crisp, properly imaged sound that audiophiles do.

But if you’re willing to put up the cash and endure its design shortcomings, the HiFiMan’s rich quality of sound will enrich the quality of your life.

WIRED Audiophile-pleasing deep, rich, clean sound. Pulls double duty as portable and home-stereo headphone solution. Walkman looks shout “don’t steal me.” Modular components (amplifier, battery). Comes with screwdriver and schematics for alternate amp designs.

TIRED Barely portable — large awkward chassis hard to carry. Menu and button configuration clearly traveled via flux capacitor from 2001. Only a small selection of 24-bit music is available for sale online. No docking station. You’ll need high-quality headphones to enjoy the player’s sounds.

Product: Mix Master Headphones

Manufacturer: Skullcandy

Wired Rating: 6

Skullcandy’s newest set of headphones allow you to put your favorite NBA team on your head, provided your squad of choice is the Lakers, Knicks, Celtics, Heat, Cavaliers or Bulls.

The NBA Mix Master DJ Headphones come in six different styles sporting each team’s signature colors and the jersey number of its best player: The Lakers model is festooned with Kobe’s number 24, Cavs get Lebron’s 23, natch. Memory-foam pillows line both the headband and the earpads for a snug, comfortable fit, and separate jacks allow you to connect a straight or coiled cable to the left or right side.

The ‘phones use passive noise cancellation to effectively dampen unwanted racket, while a one-touch on-ear mute button silences your jams and lets you hear what’s happening in the outside world. Unfortunately, when music is cranked at high volume, we heard slight hissing and muffled tunes. Bass? Let’s just say we’ve read hallmark cards with more impact.

The sound emitted from these pretty kids isn’t revolutionary, but you buy these for style. And exclusivity — there are only 100 pairs for each team. When you’re done mixing the latest beats or streaming the NBA playoffs on your computer, the Mix Masters fold comfortably into a padded travel pouch. Try getting your fave NBA baller to do that.

WIRED Connect the cord to whichever ear you fancy. High-gloss finish is quite the head-turner.

TIRED Look way better than they sound — audio quality isn’t stellar. Snug fit can feel a bit too tight after long use. What no Pistons? No Jazz!?