Jonathan Hensley | The Blog | JHensley.org

Here are some interesting links from today:

• HD streaming added to Netflix-compatible Samsung Blu-ray decks
  Samsung has added support for HD streaming of Netflix video to its BD-P2500 and BD-P2550 players. The upgrade is available as a free firmware update (players should automatically prompt users to install the software update, or DIYers can download it from Samsung's support site and burn it to disc).
• Live TV on the iPhone
  On Thursday Livestation will preview a development application for the iPhone/iPod Touch. Perhaps it will be the making of the platform? Who knows. But the irony to all this is that in 2006 Microsoft and Skinkers signed a technology for equity deal in 2006, a first for Microsoft in Europe at the time. So Microsoft will have a stake in bringing live TV to the iPhone. Nice.

• Businesses warming up to the iPhone
  the iPhone is making a guerrilla attack on the business world, brought into the corporate world by influential executives, CIOs rethinking their approach to deploying technology, and younger workers who move seamlessly between their personal and business lives.

  There are several high-profile businesses, such as Genentech and Disney (both with strong ties to Apple CEO Steve Jobs, of course), that have declared their intentions to work with Apple on deploying iPhones inside their corporations. That seems to be having the effect of increasing the overall number of business smartphone users, however, rather than turning the iPhone into any kind of "BlackBerry killer."

Here are some interesting links from today:

• Silicon Mountain Allio HDTV Has Built-in PC, Blu-ray, More
  That new HD LCD TV is great, but you know it really needs? A DVD/Blu-ray player, for starters. Also, if you could toss in an Intel Core2Duo processor and a terabyte of storage, that would be nice. And while we’re at it, I’m going to need a wireless keyboard and mouse, plus a split-screen feature, so I can multi-task. Got all that? Good.
• iPhone twice as reliable as BlackBerry? Dream on
  I love my iPhone and have never felt tempted to return to the BlackBerry, but I was still rolling my eyes at TechCrunch’s report of the iPhone being “twice as reliable as the BlackBerry”. After all, my iPhone crashed in four different applications in a 45-minute period this afternoon.Of course, the referenced SquareTrade study covers hardware malfunctions, not software malfunctions. In this, perhaps it is true that the malfunction rate for Apple’s smartphones after one year is only 5.6 percent, while Research In Motion’s phones crap out 11.2 percent of the time.

  But in day-to-day usage, I’ve found my iPhone software to be far less stable than the ugly-but-reliable BlackBerry software.

• Google can now OCR all PDFs
  Google has a new system that scans Acrobat PDFs on the web for words using Optical Character Recognition (OCR). Similar to its process for using OCR to detect words in PDFs that have already been OCR processed, the new system will do the same for scanned documents posted online that haven’t yet undergone OCR.If you have scanned PDFs and are interested in having them converted into text, you can upload the images to your website and take advantage of this service.

  Simply follow the instructions for how to use Google OCR from the Digital Inspiration website

• Top 10 Things to Look Forward to in Windows 7
  While the next iteration of the ubiquitous Microsoft desktop operating system, Windows 7, isn’t a dramatic overhaul of its predecessor Windows Vista, it does fix several sore spots and add a few welcome features. Rumor has it that Windows 7 will drop in the middle of next year, but last month Microsoft released a “preview” tester build of Windows 7. After living in the Windows 7 Preview for a week now, several features and niceties jumped out at me which promise to make Windows a better place to work come 2009. Let’s take a look.

Here are some interesting links from yesterday:

• YouTube to post full-length MGM films
  YouTube, the largest video-sharing website, will show full-length television shows and films from Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer’s archives in its latest step to boost advertising revenue by adding professional programing, the company told Reuters on Sunday.The site, owned by Google Inc, plans to make the announcement about the new partnership on Monday.MGM Studios will kick off the partnership by posting episodes of its decade-old “American Gladiators” program to YouTube on one channel.
• iPhone trumps RAZR as most purchased US consumer handset
  Apple’s iPhone 3G dethroned the top-ranked Motorola RAZR as the leading handset purchased by adult consumers in the U.S. during the third quarter of the year, according to market research firm NPD.The shift puts an end to the RAZR’s three-year run atop the market, with the Motorola handset falling to the second slot, followed by Research in Motion’s Blackberry Curve, LG’s Rumor, and LG’s enV2, respectively.
• iPhones Twice As Reliable As BlackBerries
  The iPhone is twice as reliable as the Blackberry after one year of ownership, a new study by SquareTrade finds. SquareTrade, which sells extra warranties for cell phones and other devices, looked at the failure rates of 15,000 phones covered under its plans. The malfunction rate for iPhones after one year is 5.6 percent, compared to 11.2 percent for the Blackberry and 16.2 percent for the Treo.

In recent news:

• AT&T-sanctioned 3G tethering on the way for iPhone
  In an interview with Michael Arrington at the Web 2.0 Summit, AT&T Mobility CEO Ralph De La Vega let it be known that an official, AT&T sanctioned method of using the iPhone as a 3G modem for a laptop is on the way “soon”.
• Search Engine Optimization Training
  If you’re looking for some SEO teaching and have a spare 30 minutes you might find this video presentation by Stephan Spencer at a recent WordPress event.