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Well, by now you probably have seen the commercials. The first commercial began with a children’s lullaby playing in the background as a series of “i don’t” phrases appeared on a whiteboard. This was just enough to catch one’s curiosity when the final “i don’t” phrase dissolves into an eerie Sci-Fi fuzzy screen and a voice is heard announcing the coming of Droid. As a fighter pilot wannabe, the second commercial was much more to my liking. A squadron of what look to be 2^nd or 3^rd generation stealth fighter-bombers is flying in formation when the order is given to release the pods. A shower of what appears to be meteors fills the skies. Upon impact the locals gather around each crater and the pods begin to open when the background voice announces the arrival of Droid.

Last Friday Verizon’s iPhone killer went on sale. Motorola’s Droid has a mobile open source platform on the Verizon network. Michelle Megna reports for Internetnews.com on the impending battle between Apple, the maker of the iPhone, and the PC community in her article entitled “Droid First Step in iPhone Fade Away?”. Megna quotes Tim McLaughlin, CEO of Siteworx, a mobile app and Web development company,

"History shows that unlike Apple, PCs gathered the ecosystem of profitable companies, such as Dell and IBM, thanks to its open technology. Apple, however, only develops systems that benefit itself. It all comes down to economics, and the only company interested in making the iPhone ubiquitous is Apple. On the other hand, you have Google, Verizon, Motorola, all these big companies together, the cumulative market value is huge. You put all of those resources together, and even though it's less effective because it's not centralized like Apple, it will still have a huge impact"

Brad Reed and Matt Hamblen have done their due diligence research on the product and have come up with a nifty review in their article for Computerworld entitled “Four reasons to buy (and one reason to avoid) the Droid”. I’ll try to provide a brief summary of their five points:

1.       Droid is the strongest device on the Verizon Network with the following three characteristics:

a.       Mobile browsing capability

b.      A very good voice recognition functionality

c.       The largest 3G data coverage network of Verizon

2.       The Google connection: The open platform will stimulate development of new apps and allow users to switch to new carriers while maintaining the same device.

3.       Ability to run two applications simultaneously: iPhone can’t do it. Once Droid develops the appropriate security features, then Blackberry will need to pay attention as Droid could become the device of choice for the enterprise user.

4.       Connection to the internet through Wi-Fi: Also use of the same processor as the iPhone will allow a fast and smooth browsing experience.

5.       AND the one reason to avoid this device is the keyboard: Droid has the touchscreen capability, but in order to get that feel of hitting the keys, they have also developed a slide-out keyboard. This feature allows enough room for a larger display screen. Reed and Hamblen report that users do not get the same feel with this shallow keyboard.

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In my reading and search for noteworthy events in the IT world, I have come across several interesting, but not necessarily connected articles. I thought I would list out a few of these to keep my readers apprised of these current events and what is or may be happening in the not too distant future. I’ll give you a very brief synopsis and provide the link to each article if you feel the need to dig further into the story. My selections (not in any particular order of importance) are as follows:

BlackBerry Bold Keyboard Is Hot

Judy Mottl reports that all sales of the BlackBerry Bold in Japan have been halted. It seems after the first week that NTT DoCoMo, Japan’s mobile carrier, received more than several complaints that the keyboards were hot. At present it is not a battery issue, just hot keyboards. Mottl puts an interesting twist in the article by listing out some component prices for the BlackBerry Bold. The highest priced component is the processor at $34.34 while the keyboard is listed at $1.85. For more on this see BlackBerry Bold too hot to handle in Japan.

Stimulus Money for Broadband

Kenneth Corbin reports that $7.2 billion of the total $787 billion stimulus package passed by Congress has been allocated for broadband deployment. The National Telecommunications Information Administration (NTIA) will be meeting with ISP’s soon all looking for some of the approximate$4.5 billion the NTIA has to spend. The remaining $2.5 billion will be administered by the Rural Utilities Service (RUS) for broadband in the more sparsely populated areas. Corbin seems to buy into the Obama Administrations claim for transparency on the spending of these funds. His article is entitled Feds pressing forward with broadband stimulus plans.

The Demise of TV News

If you are as frustrated as me with the TV News, then Mike Elgan’s article Why Social Media is Killing (Bad) TV News is a must read. Elgan’s opinion piece is a no nonsense approach to the obvious bias and search for ratings and career boosting antics of the anchors. Elgan holds nothing back as he illustrates his point using CNN's Wolf Blitzer “doing his clumsy ‘Situation Room’ shtick”. Elgan is infuriated at the rehashing of the 4 top stories (as the editors see it) and suggests reporting on the top 20 stories. He presents a list of 5 things to do for TV News to become more timely and relevant while taking a swipe at the “over-paid personalities” delivering their own slanted opinions on what they have decided are the top 4 news items of the day. I disagree with one of his points though. In his third point he wants to do away with all opinion show personalities. He states the following, “Bill O'Reilly, Lou Dobbs, Sean Hannity, Jim Cafferty, Keith Olbermann, Rachael Maddow and their ilk — show them the door.”  I think we already have a system set-up for that. It is called ratings. As long as each opinion show personality makes it clear to the viewers that the show is an opinion show and not a “Hard News” show, I say let the viewers decide. Just in case you are not sure where Elgan’s true feelings lie after reading his 5 points, he concludes his article as follows:

“Of course, I don't expect the TV new media to do any of these things. The medium is the message, and the number-one objective of any organization is to blindly pursue the interests of the organization itself. TV networks need their advertising dollars, and believe that the only way to make money is to be phony, non-responsive propaganda machines that barely cover the news and spend half their time on self-promotion.

Fine.  Just don't expect me to watch. I'll be getting the real news on Twitter.”

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