New Zune ads hit this week during Heroes. It's was pretty good, showcasing the new features in the Zune client on the PC. That's one of the things I found interesting, they were showcasing the Zune desktop software. No word of the player.

Is Microsoft going to try the reverse of devices driving services and and see if the Zune player will drive folks to the device?

As i've said many times, I'm not an attorney (much to my parent's chagrin) so I won't comment on the legality but I do have to wonder if HP's new multi-touch notebook doesn't violate Apple's patent on gestures.

Thanks to UnWired View for the pointer.

HP's had their TouchSmart PCs out for some time but now they've upped the ante with the new TouchSmart tx2 Notebook PC. Rather than wait for Windows 7, HP has built their own set of gesture support directly in Vista.

• SINGLE, DOUBLE TAP: Select objects by touching them once (single tap), or double tap to open objects/programs.

• FLICK: Scroll or pan within an application either horizontally or vertically. For example, in MediaSmart Photo, flick your finger to the left on the display and the inertia from your flick will move the photos leftward, just as if you pushed a piece of paper to the left on a table.

• PRESS & DRAG: Touch an object on the display and hold and drag it to the desired destination.

• ARC: Allows you to move tracks to/from playlists without having to make a straight line.

• PINCH: Touch an object on the display once to select the item then place 2 fingers on opposite corners of the object, then move them closer together to decrease the object’s size or to zoom out. Move fingers away from one another to enlarge the object or to zoom in.

• ROTATE: Rotate photos by touching the object once to select the item then use 2 fingers on opposite corners of the image and rotate the image either clockwise or counter-clockwise.

• LAUNCH MEDIASMART: Touch the screen with two fingers together and write the letter "m" on the display to launch the MediaSmart Smart Menu.

Of course, they'll also be standard Vista tablet features there as well.

HP is definitely pushing the envelope here with this technology and they are the first vendor to market with a touchscreen optimized for touch. The question is how well will touch work on laptop, not optimized for the experience. Pen based tablets have struggled to find mass market adoption, while on the other hand, Apple has shown market acceptance for touch screen devices. The challenge HP has is to demonstrate that touch is more than a tech gimmick and good demo fodder. Rather, the key will be to demonstrate how touch is a viable part of the UI experience (especially when Microsoft has its own plans for touch and gestures in Windows).

One of the biggest issues regarding mobility in the digital home, whether it's laptop usage, smartphones or the ability to placeshift has been the home network. It's simply the Achilles heel that just doesn't work.

It's nice to see a network vendor taking real responsibility for the home network and driving the support that consumers need to make this stuff work.

Nice idea and it looks like it's nicely done.

New Zune ads hit last night during Heroes. I can't find it online but it was pretty good, showcasing the new features in the Zune client on the PC. That's one of the things I found interesting, they were showcasing the Zune desktop software. No word of the player.

Is Microsoft going to try the reverse of devices driving services and and see if the Zune player will drive folks to the device?

Good post by Andy Finnell

Andy calculates that a developer who wants to make a living off an iPhone app (at $40k/year) must sell 196 apps per day to do that. He also calculates that at $9.99 per app, you'd need to sell 16 apps per day to do that.

Thanks to Fred Wilson for the link.

Of course, there are different price points and models that make sense. I do agree, that it's foolish to race to the bottom and remove all value from the development process. Sure, i'd like to pay .99 for an app but I'd rather pay 19.99 and make sure there are more apps from this developer in the future.

After all the furor of a day or two delay, it's finally here. Like many of you, i tried the App and while it's cool it just didn't work that well for me. Too many errors (or perhaps it's the way I speak) to make it really useful.

I personally found the voice search in the Samsung Instinct to be both much faster and more accurate.

Voice recognition and understand are still one of the Holy Grail's of technology and it always seems like the really good stuff is five years away. Perhaps in five more years, we'll actually have really good voice UI.

This is just a little embarrassing. Verizon had sent out a number of VIP promotions inviting folks for a pre-sale for the new BlackBerry Storm. Except when folks showed
up, there were no devices to be purchased or even seen.

The whole thing seems odd. Surely, someone at VZW knew what was going on. Was this a big miscommunication or something else? Either way, it's not the best way to start the launch of a shiny new product. Sure, things go wrong with launches all the time, but it's how you deal with them and fix them that matters.

It's called High Definition Content Protection and it's hard to buy an HD devices without it these days. It's used to keep DRM enabled HiDef content protected and it's found on the PS3 and even Apple TV.

It's also part of the new MacBook design and if you connect using a Mini DisplaPort to VGA adapter iTunes Store video content won't play, although not all iTunes content seems to be protected this way. I've said it before.

DRM should be used to create new business models and not protect older ones. This one's not a good idea.

I've been a user of the Slingbox since the first one came out. I've watched the Yankees play while traveling in the Middle East thanks to it and have not turned on a TV in a hotel room in years as my laptop has become my mobile TV.

I've been waiting for their follow on product, the SlingCatcher for some time. Think of it as a reverse SlingBox that lets you watch content stored on your PC on your TV along with Internet content (and even connect to Slingboxes). My review unit came late yesterday so in the process of setting it up. Please let me know if you have any questions and I'll try my best to answer them.

Should you really want one, the OLPC "give one to get one" site is now live. Why you'd want one, well that's another story entirely.

In addition to the price cuts, Microsoft is putting out a new firmware update today. In addition to bug fixes, there's some new features and some new games. Texa Hold 'Em is now WiFi enabled for multi user play and there's also Checkers, Sudoku and Space Battle (which is a lot like the classic, Galaga).

Not bad stuff for Zune users. Now, how about a full games store?

Microsoft tweaks the Zune pricing a bit for the holidays. They're only changing the flash devices. HD Zune price will stay the same. The 16gb flash will drop to $179, the 8gb will go to $139 and the 4gb now hits $99. Nice prices but will they be enough to drive market share?

WSJ reporting that Jerry Yang will be stepping down as Yahoo CEO as soon as the board can find a replacement. Can't say this comes as a shock but still. Wow!

Colleague Todd Ogasawara points to Mike Temporale who's having some problems with Microsoft's fix for the SMTP bug.

I've been bitten by that bug and until now, there's been no recourse for the affected account other than to delete it and rebuild it. I've installed the fix on four different Windows Mobile devices here and have had no issues with it (my devices did re-boot on install and it would have been nice to have some warning that would happen). Email is flowing and I haven't had any further SMTP issues sending mail from Gmail, which had been the account I have had problems with in the past.

As always, your mileage may vary but I think this one's safe to install and beats having to re-configure a corrupt email account on the road.