As Apple announced at its press conference regarding the iPhone 4′s antenna issues, the free case program it instituted as a means of addressing the problem comes to an end today, September 30th. Obviously Apple wants this day to pass relatively unnoticed, but I’d be remiss in my duties if I let that happen.

No, this day should be observed by Apple fans and detractors alike, because for a lot of people new to the company, it probably marks the symbolic end of the honeymoon period in the budding relationship. The iPhone is the first device from the Mac-maker for a lot of consumers, and the antenna issues with iPhone 4 have shown many of them that the shine can indeed rub off of this Apple.

There was a big kerfuffle, and the media duly reported the issues, perhaps even going a little farther than necessary because of the love/hate relationship we seem to have with Cupertino. Apple reportedly lost some sales, according to studies conducted by research groups, and their initial reaction leading up to the free case solution stands as a lesson in how not to handle a PR disaster. But is there really a lesson to be learned, and even if there is, did Apple learn it?

What was the real harm that came out of the debacle? Record sales? Millions of digital words produced by all of the web’s premiere tech news outlets, and even the traditional print and TV media? The only “loss” that came out of Antennagate was a theoretical one, an imagined degree of greatness slightly greater than the already great numbers the iPhone 4 delivered.

But Android is catching up to Apple, the counter-argument goes. Surely, something like this will have a long-term effect on Apple’s reputation that will hobble the company in that ongoing race. Except that it takes a lot to burn a company as fire-proof as Apple. Certainly much more than a simple design flaw that doesn’t actually break or make useless the product it affects. Think about NVIDIA-gate before this, which was far worse in terms of the actual effects on products which had the issue.

While we probably won’t see anything as blatantly problematic as the antenna issue in future iterations of the iPhone, Apple walks away from the ordeal without having learned the crucial lesson that in consumer electronics, design must ultimately answer to function, and that customers shouldn’t be told they’re imagining things or using products wrong when they bring up a valid concern. In the corporate world, the only effective teachers are dollars and sense, and Apple’s don’t seem too concerned about what’s actually on the curriculum.

At the very least, take advantage of the case program well you still can. That’s costing Apple something, so it may be teaching the company something as well.

Related content from GigaOM Pro (sub req’d):

• Mobile Operators’ Strategies for Connected Devices
• Why Apple Should End Its Fight Against iPhone Jailbreaking
• The Bright Future of Distributed Antenna Systems

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Sudanese residents pump water from a well in their village. Source: AFP/Getty Images

There are many theories about why Africa has been left behind economically, and the debate often degenerates into a blame game.

Colonialism is at fault, say some. A cycle of victimhood is entrenched by a culture of dependency on aid, say others.

Many say Africa has been shut out of markets and denied the means to compete on a level playing field.

The latest addition to the debate comes from a South African academic, Greg Mills, who has written a book called “Why Africa is Poor: And What Africans Can Do About It.”

He argues Africa is poor because “Africa’s leaders have made this choice.” It’s a controversial angle, but the basic premise that poor leadership has steered generations of African countries down the path to poverty is not new.

All of us who live in Africa can name leaders – from presidents to local municipal workers – who have made their communities poorer. It's not just the Mugabes or Mobutus of this continent who have shattered Africa’s promise, it is the often nameless, mid-level workers whose corrupt or incompetent actions result in schoolchildren not getting books, for example.

We interview Greg on Marketplace Africa this week, so watch the interview for more of his analysis.

However, I wanted to know from you: why do you think many parts of Africa have not realized their potential after more than 50 years of independence?

What is the secret formula? Is there one?

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Let’s get this out in the open: Antonio Cassano, Francesco Totti, Mario Balotelli….none of these men could have split the atom. Extraordinary, occasionally unbelievable, physical and athletic talents, but they don’t quite possess the same intellectual prowess. Totti’s written a book of jokes about it (alright, maybe ghostwritten), Balotelli has hinted at such recently and with enough digging, I’m sure there’s a slightly depressing, Mike Tyson-esque quote of resignation from Talentino in which he waxes on how stupid he be.

Maybe Cesare Prandelli has something up his sleeve, or maybe he’s referring to their footballing IQs (likely, but let’s ignore it for a second), but he has a quote in which he claims to want players of Balotelli’s “intellectual capacity” directly after hinting at a return of the telepathic duo of Totti & Cassano to the Italian attack.

“The idea of seeing Totti and Cassano together in the national team is a particular desire, we’re talking about friendship, a relationship that exists between them. We wanted to create an occasion which would be an example for kids who would want to watch the match. I said it would be great for two friends to rediscover each other on the pitch.”

Another player Prandelli wants to see back in his squad is 20-year-old Balotelli.

“I miss him because I really want to try out an attack with players of his intellectual capacity,” added Prandelli.

This could spawn a sequel to Totti’s novella of yuckers:

How best to stop the Italian Cassano-Totti-Balotelli tridente?

Long division.

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How the mighty have fallen. When I lived in Ireland five years ago, the country had a spring in its step. Its property magnates were snapping up prime real estate in central London, or paying eye watering sums for prestigious sites in crowded Dublin. Their banks were some of the top-rated in Europe, busily acquiring businesses in the United States and eastern Europe. High-end housing estates mushroomed, a gleaming new tram system was installed, and the finance district buzzed and hummed with industry as international businesses flocked to a country they praised for its low taxes and well-educated workforce.

Of course, the warning signs were there. House prices were ridiculously inflated (I wrote back in 2006 that less than a fifth of houses for sale in Dublin were on offer below 317,500 euros – the level at which property tax kicked in for first time buyers). The economy was highly exposed to its banking sector and to external shocks, as the central bank recognised at the time – although it saw the risks as limited : “While the strengthening of domestic demand puts the euro area in a better position than previously to withstand a U.S. slowdown, this challenge would intensify if the U.S. economic situation were to deteriorate sharply,” the Irish central bank said in October 2006. “This, however, still remains a risk scenario rather than the baseline one.”

Anglo Irish bank – the disgraced lender that will cost the Irish government up to 34 billion euros to bail out – was a shining star of the country’s banking system. “We’re confident about the future,” Anglo Irish’s then-group finance director, Willie McAteer, told me in a phone interview in 2006. “When he had half a billion (euros in profit) in ‘04 we talked about making a billion in five years’ time. I suppose now we’re looking forward really to 2010 to one and a half billion”.

The Irish finance minister during this period was one Brian Cowen, now the country’s Prime Minister who is fighting for his political life. Cowen’s parliamentary majority has been slashed to less than four in the lower chamber and his government is – unsurprisingly- deeply unpopular. The government has slashed public spending to pay for its ballooning deficit and help fund the bank rescue. Propping up the troubled lenders will lift the country’s deficit to 32 pct of GDP, with the underlying deficit to GDP at 12 percent. That’s among the highest of all advanced economies globally.

Hardly surprising, then, that recent opinion polls suggest a new coalition of centre-right Fine Gael and centre-left Labour will sweep to power in elections due in 2012 at the latest. What more that alliance could do to salve the pain for Ireland, though, is unclear. Many of the glamorous housing estates I marvelled at on my way to work each morning (largely wondering how anyone could afford to live in them) now stand empty: Ireland – with a population of 4 million – has 300,000 unsold or unfinished houses. Official unemployment stands at nearly 14 percent. True unemployment is thought to be closer to 20 percent.

The way out will be long and painful: it’s a path Ireland trod at the end of the last century and few who enjoyed the benefits of that growth in the early noughties thought they’d be back here again so soon.
But it’s also possible that the overly optimistic view of Ireland seen a few years ago is currently being matched by an overly pessimistic view of the future. As my colleague Peter Thal Larsen of Reuters Breakingviews points out, delivering a credible four-year budget plan later this year is crucial. Ireland may be down, but it’s not yet out.

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OMG! This is awesome. The Paris Motor Show that has got underway is witnessing some fascinating models. One among them that interests us much is the Lamborghini Sesto Elemento Concept, which is being dubbed a hypercar.

We have earlier seen the Lamborghini roll out illustrious models of the likes of the Muira, Countach, Diablo and the Murcielago. The latest model stands somewhat like a spectacular piece of design. The concept has been one of the most hyped and awaited models from the Lamborghini stables.

Going by the looks of it, it seems the Sesto Elemento hypercar concept will live up to the hype. Take a look at the images from the show, they are sure to leave you fascinated!

(Via Autoblog)

View full post on Car Blog | Breaking Motoring News Daily

I always have such high hopes for Microsoft Office for Mac. “This time it’ll be better,” I think, and then, without fail, it isn’t. That’s when I end up just switching to Windows using Boot Camp whenever I want to use Word, and Microsoft’s nefarious plan becomes apparent.

Office for Mac 2011 looks to break that track record, and we won’t have to wait long to find out if it does. The official Office for Mac blog announced yesterday that the new version will be available for purchase starting Oct. 26, roughly a month from now. You can pre-order your copy now at Amazon, as well.

Among the new features is Dynamic Reorder, which allows you to reorder the layers in a document or presentation on the fly easily, something that came out of user feedback. Microsoft is also clearly paying attention to usage trends, since it also introduced a new Full Screen view that mimics much simpler products like WriteRoom that are designed to take the distractions out of writing. All you see is a white page on a black screen.

I’ve had a chance to test out the beta version of Office 2011, and I have to say that my early impressions are overwhelmingly positive. I haven’t had cause to jump into my Boot Camp partition since installing it, for instance (except to play Civilization V, but that’s a totally different post).

Office 2011 also sees the arrival of the Ribbon, Microsoft’s new navigation scheme for the productivity suite. It’s a welcome addition, since I always found using the floating formatting window really counter-intuitive and generally frustrating.

Menu and interface improvements aside, Office 2011, even in beta form, offers tremendous improvement in terms of stability and performance. I haven’t had it crash on me yet, and it opens and loads much faster than Office 2008. At the very least, the impression of intentional hobbling on Microsoft’s part is definitely gone.

While I’m probably going to stick with iWork as my main productivity suite, since my end products usually take the form of PDFs and I like their fancy-pants templates, I’ll actually be glad to get my hands on the final version of Office 2011, for those times when Apple’s offering isn’t an option.

Related content from GigaOM Pro (sub req’d):

• How to Manage Consumer-Grade Collaborative Tools in the Workplace
• Author to Audience: Disintermediation in Publishing
• By The Numbers: Running a Coworking Space

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Apple has sold nearly 100,000 iPhone 4 handsets through China Unicom in the first four days of device sales, while 200,000 total phones were pre-ordered. For 1.4 billion people, the smartphone transition in China is just beginning, but feature phone makers need to step it up.

View full post on TheAppleBlog

The Apple TV is here; one just arrived at my door this morning. I spent the day setting it up and putting it through its paces, and here’s what I think of Apple’s latest foray into the living room.

As with all Apple products, the unboxing of the Apple TV is a lesson in minimalism. It’s hard to imagine the tiny black square of plastic, hardly bigger than the gum-stick remote, bringing all your entertainment to your living room.

Installation and Setup

Compared to other set-top boxes, installing the new Apple TV exemplifies the “it just works” philosophy associated with Apple products, assuming you have an HDMI cable. Would it kill Apple to spend an extra 20 cents for an HDMI cable to ensure everyone can run it out of the box?

The Apple TV connects to the television (in my case a 60-inch 1080p plasma) using only an HDMI cable, so long as you have one. After that, just plug in the power cord. Here we see the first minor flaw in the new Apple TV. That power indicator light flashes, a lot. How that slipped past QA, I don’t know, but hopefully a firmware update will fix it. Until then, a spot of electrical tape will do.

Initially, you control the Apple TV with the included remote. However, if, like me, you have an Apple Remote kicking around that came with an old MacBook, and think the play/pause button in the center of the wheel was the pinnacle of design, you can use that, too. Owners of an iOS device will definitely want to upgrade to the Remote app, especially to ease the pain of text entry.

From the setup menu, you choose a language, and whether or not to send diagnostic and usage information to Apple. After that, you add the Apple TV to your Wi-Fi network, though Ethernet is also an option. Lastly, you turn on Home Sharing, both on the Apple TV and in iTunes 10 on every computer you want to access content from. It’s as simple as entering your iTunes ID and password.

It’s important to remember that if iTunes can’t import it, the Apple TV can’t share it. If you want .mkv video, you should be using VLC on a home theater PC. But if you’re looking for ease of use, well, I had the Apple TV up and running in about five minutes.

iTunes

Not surprisingly, the UI has big text for readability and navigation, but the layout could be better. Simplified from the previous iteration, it’s a little too simple, dumping a lot of different content into non-intuitive “Internet” and “Computers” categories. As the prominent placement of two of the five main menu options indicates, the iTunes Store kiosk in your living room is still open for business.

Performance of iTunes was amazing, at least on my connection, which runs in excess of 20Mbps down/0.5 Mbps up. The top movies display as icons, and my screen was filled almost instantly. If you want the virtual equivalent of walking the aisles at Blockbuster, you can browse by genre, or do a search, which is predictive and offers movies and related categories like actors and directors.

A selected movie offers a trailer, the quality and price of rental, an “Add to Wish List’ and a “more” option. The last provides reviews from Rotten Tomatoes and customers, as well as links to other works by the principal actors and creators of a film.

The Television section works similarly, though the dearth of content becomes obvious when browsing by network. There are nine “networks” subdivided out of four: Fox, ABC, BBC, and Disney. Choosing a title provides information on quality and viewing license, and paying for the rental is easy, though delivery is a little annoying. There’s no indication when a download has begun, though you’re notified when enough of the content is available to watch, which took less than a minute in my experience.

The 720p video quality was, in my opinion, very good, and only the extreme videophile should have something to complain about. Overall, the experience at the iTunes Store is excellent, but then Apple makes coin on this, so why expect anything less?

Netflix

The Netflix experience is likewise excellent. Unlike the iPad and iPhone app, which is little more than a wrapper for the web page, the Apple TV version of Netflix is tailored to the device. Just one example, the Netflix iPhone app doesn’t handle television well, allowing you only to play the next show in a season. The Apple TV, by contrast, provides a list of episodes for each season.

Netflix on the Apple TV provides a half-dozen ways to browse content, as well as search. It’s nicely laid out, and works well, though not as smoothly as the iTunes Store. Movie icons take longer to load, and there can be a slight pause when navigating some menu options as the Apple TV “Accesses Netflix.”

Playback, however, is good. It takes about ten seconds for a video to start, better for me than running Netflix on a Core Duo Mac mini. Video quality doesn’t seem quite as good as Apple TV rentals, but, again, nothing to complain about, which sadly, isn’t the case with local content.

Streaming Local Content

Curiously, Apple chose to sort local content for home sharing by the computer it resides on, rather than by content, as with the previous Apple TV interface. It’s annoying, and there’s no real reason for it, since a pool of all available content would be much more usable.

Once you select a computer, the familiar, if dated, Front Row/Apple TV interface is presented. On a good note, streaming performance has been excellent, despite my efforts to stress the local network. I’d planned on using Ethernet to connect the Mac mini to the Apple TV, rather than relying on the 802.11 b/g of the older computer, but there was no need. So far, access is quick and content streams without issue.

Unfortunately, some of the other aspects of the Apple TV could be better. While photos load quickly, home movies don’t show up at all, neither locally or from MobileMe. That’s seems odd, since the Gallery app for MobileMe does play movies on other iOS devices.

Like photos, music seems an afterthought on the new Apple TV. It works, and streaming sounds great, but the means of access seems quite basic. The rest of the content (YouTube, Radio, flickr, etc.) seems not to have changed much. It’s all quite functional, but nothing special.

While opening the Apple TV to the App Store might substantially change the purpose of the device, its focus now appears to be video. From presentation to delivery, you get the feeling that most of the work went into making the Apple TV a top-line, video streaming device. With AirPlay coming soon, it’ll be even better at video. In short, the Apple TV seems to have finally lived up to its name.

Related content from GigaOM Pro (sub req’d):

• Strategies for the Future of Digital Content Storage
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• Got a Cable Subscription? There’ll Be an App for That

View full post on TheAppleBlog

East Cork, Ireland (CNN) – The issue of ghost estates in Ireland is more than empty houses.

It's a symbol of the country's descent from the Celtic Tiger leading the European charge of prosperity to a broken state, crippled by what most would agree was a universal greed: Greed of consumers, developers and those who Irish people blame the most, the banks.

I moved to England ten years ago just as the building boom was really taking off. From a small coastal town of just over 5,000 people, on each return visit I was amazed and somewhat aghast at new developments nestled within the town.

The old fairground and amusement center made way for a block of brightly colored apartments. The field where my friends and I used to hang out as a child was freshly paved with a new development. Even the building which used to house our convent school was rumored to be next in line for conversion into seafront apartments.

This money never came and the building now lies unoccupied. One look and it's visible that the grounds remain unattended, with grass shoots sprouting from some parts of the roof.

It's this overindulgence – this viewpoint that property equaled money – that drove the Irish property market. Cian O'Callaghan, one of the authors of the only official reports into ghost estates, told me that during the boom the few voices that questioned this flood of housing were systematically accused of “standing in the way of progress.”

In other words, the Irish people seemed to view this building trend as a means of traveling to modernity. Rows of bright shiny houses with two bathrooms, front and rear gardens and a garage would show the world that Ireland was no longer the poor man of Europe. Ireland was taking its place amongst the developed world and its people would benefit from the fruits of its success.

People now living in ghost estates were, not surprisingly, reluctant to talk about the experience of living in a half finished development. But I met an interesting character who shed more light on an already tragic situation. This man was a council tenant on a ghost estate where the council had taken over about a dozen empty homes.

He takes care of his severely disabled daughter in a two story house. Moving his daughter up and down the stairs was proving difficult and he pleaded with the council authorities to rehousee him into a bungalow.

“It's a disgrace,” he kept saying. “Not five miles down the road there are rows of empty houses, all unoccupied and with all the thousands of unoccupied houses in the country, the council tells me there are no bungalows available.”

I traveled to the estate he told me about in a neighboring village and sure enough, there was a fenced part of an existing estate with rows of bungalows and signs threatening: “Danger. Keep out.”

In a radius of ten miles from the town of Middleton, which is featured in my report, I must have counted at least a dozen ghost estates. In some, there were a few rows of houses occupied. One entire estate of 78 houses which appeared almost ready for occupancy was now fenced off.

The developer had gone bust. Roads and lighting had not been finished. However, advertising signs of future planned developments next to ghost estates remain: A sign that had not the money run dry, the appetite for development would have continued. Now the land earmarked for future building lies empty and overgrown.

The question is, will Ireland ever be at a point where it once again will be at a point to resurrect these plans on its quest for progression?

View full post on Business 360

Opel is developing three battery-electric versions of its Meriva as part of the MeRegioMobil research project which is funded by the Ministry of Economics and Technology in Germany.

GM’s Opel electric Meriva will feature electronic controls which will allow high power electrical recharging using both a 230-volt single-phase current (charging time is approximately 3.5 hours) as well as a 400-volt three-phase AC (takes less than an hour to charge).

The vehicle-to-grid (V2G) capability of the car via the bi-directional charging system (when the car is not in use and the driver permits it) will be the real test. This demonstration of two-way charging technology will test the practicality of distributed energy storage in car batteries for home usage.

The car will be coming equipped with a 16 kWh battery pack which will provide a range of 64 km (40 miles) and the vehicle will be able to hit a top speed of 130 km/h (81 mph).

(Via AutoblogGreen)

View full post on Car Blog | Breaking Motoring News Daily