Apple passes RIM in Smartphone Share - News that was likely expected as Apple continued to release incredibly successful products. But, now, it has been confirmed that Apple has a larger share of the smartphone pie than RIM. RIM needs a big win. Coverage: GigaOM.
HP Slate 500 is Announced - I personally didn't think this was going to be real. The iPad was a huge success, Windows slates were not really happening, the Courier concept was shelved - it seemed the Steve Ballmer demo wold be the last time we see this slat, until this week! Expect it to cost $799.00us. Coverage: Gizmodo, Engadget, Mashable.
Wi-Fi Direct -This week, a new protocol for wireless communications from device to device (similar to Bluetooth). Given that 802.11 has a much better range than Bluetooth - this could change the game. I think it will depend on how easy and reliable the device setup is. Coverage: BGR.
Office 2011 for Mac - Finally arriving this week - the 2011 version of Office for the Mac platform comes out in .. um .. 2010. But, this versioning is in keeping with previous Mac/PC offerings (Remember Office 2007 and ten Office 2008?). More info here. Coverage: Unofficial Apple Weblog, Slashgear.
LimeWire Dies - This week, the "Superior network for fast distribution of spyware" was shut down in the U.S. A message on their official home page says "THIS IS AN OFFICIAL NOTICE THAT LIMEWIRE IS UNDER A COURT-ORDERED INJUNCTION TO STOP DISTRIBUTING AND SUPPORTING ITS FILE-SHARING SOFTWARE. DOWNLOADING OR SHARING COPYRIGHTED CONTENT WITHOUT AUTHORIZATION IS ILLEGAL". In Caps. Coverage: Slashdot, BGR.
Barnes & Noble NookColour - This week also saw the release of something we Canadians can't get (easily, anyway) - the color version of the Nook eReader device. Bigger screen, runs Android, nice! Coverage: CrunchGear, Mashable.
Traditional Media In Decline this week:
[Video Streaming] - A Ziff-Davis article proclaims "The Internet Belongs to Netflix". Indeed, most of the bandwidth today is being used by some sort of media streaming and Netflix is chief among them.
[Television] - ABC, CBS and NBC are blocking content and websites on Google's TV product. A Wall Street Journal article describes more about this.
[Cable TV] - Another great article on TechCrunch about the death of Cable TV (and why we shouldn't count cable out, just yet).
[Piracy] - Sean Parker, the man portrayed as sleazy in The Social Network, is actually quite a knowdegable fellow in the ways of music and media distribution. In this video, he talks about how we should accept "the war on piracy was a failure". Great video.
Tools I found interesting this week:
desksnear.me - An interesting search engine that allows nomadic workers to find a place to stop and work. The app has a limited amount of information for Toronto, but it's definitely something that has potential (we say adding Starbucks locations is also a good thing).
Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1 Release Candidate - has been released and you can download it or read the documentation.
Installing Windows 7 on a MacBook Air - You knew it was going to happen. Check out this completely untested (by me) guide to setting up this freak of computer existence.
