Gadgetell | Tech News, Reviews, and Interesting Things

Even though I took a week off from my Crack column, those feeding off the marketing hype definitely didn’t stop.  We’ll look at the movers and shakers in the industry that clearly cry out for a good detoxing and we’ll look at the consumers that can’t get enough.

This week on Who’s on Crack:

• DTV transition - 317,000 call for help?
• Palm ask devs to cool it on the tethering.
• Big government: there is an app for that.
• Nagging voices scare Apple fanboys.

Why did my TV just stop working?

To the 317,000 people that phoned the DTV transition hotline for help: share your secrets on evading this story.  Please.  I would love to be able to putt around with some hot, new product’s jingle repeating endlessly in my head.  What is your secret?

From the TV spots, to newspaper reports to radio ads, this news was everywhere.  How did 317,000 people miss this?  Have we identified the people that plug in their TVs only every six months to make sure the rest of the world is still there?  More likely, these people had problems with the converter box as our Sue Walsh lays out in this post.  However, I’d wager 87% of these calls ended up something like this:

DTV Transition Specialist: Good afternoon, how can I assist you with your DTV transition?
Caller: What did you do Matlock?
DTV Transition Specialist: We seem to have a bad connection.  Did you say Matlock?
Caller: Damn straight I did.  Why did you kill Matlock?
DTV Transition Specialist: I assure you, Matlock is just as alive as he was before.  Let me…
Caller: Hold up, Magnum is gone, too.  You are killing the smartest men of our day.  I am jumping in my Lincoln to come and get you.

Or at least, that was the crank call I made on DVT transition day.

Palm to Devs: You are totally ruining this date!

Palm, who dates everyone, finally got one carrier to go steady: Sprint.  Things are going moderately well for Palm and Sprint on this date, when all of a sudden, Palm excuses themselves to the bathroom to call developers and shouts: “Enough with the tethering thing.  You guys better stop or you are going to ruin this date.”

Seems Palm is concerned that its hot new rising star, the Palm Pre, is going to make big waves in Sprint’s network if a tethering hack is passed around.  In a post on Gadgetell, our Shawn Ingram wrote:

We have been politely cautioned by Palm that any discussion of tethering during the Sprint exclusivity period (and perhaps beyond—we don’t know yet) will probably cause Sprint to complain to Palm, and if that happened then Palm would be forced to react against the people running the IRC channel and this wiki.

Can Palm stop Sprint from shutting down the party? 

Big Gov, there’s an app for that.

The FCC is looking into phone exclusives, like the one Apple has going with AT&T, to help protect consumer choice.  Our Shawn Ingram presents the case like this:

Its nice that the FCC is finally looking into this, but it comes off as a bit late.  Given how slow the government tends to work, by the time anything they look into comes into effect the Palm Pre exclusive deal will be done, and maybe even the iPhone’s lock into AT&T.  It’s doubtful that many people outside of the four big carriers will oppose the idea of having every phone available on every network, or at least unlocked.  While that will still encourage innovation among the cell phone manufacturers, it’s hard to say how the carriers will respond.

I am going to disagree.  Apple built the iPhone to bring to one carrier that would pay more for the exclusive rights to sell it.  Remove the incentive for phone makers to build something great (and make a profit on it) and the iPhone becomes a great idea left on the dry-erase board in Cupertino.  What is next?  Forcing manufacturers to build two versions of every phone so no matter what carrier Joe Public is on it can work?  What kind of plan is that?  Let the free hand work.  If consumers really want the iPhone on Verizon, march on the Verizon store.  Don’t ask the gov to march for you.

Who is scared of voices in my head?  Or your head?

I’ll end this week with my amazement.  My post from yesterday,  “Voice in your head says Palm Pre is better than iPhone + 3.0” has received a few comments, most letting my bosses know how much of a waste of time it was to read.  The populous seem upset that the voices in my head didn’t make a very good argument why the iPhone was defeated.

Apparently, I need a good reason to like the Palm Pre over the iPhone.  The nagging voice in my head isn’t enough.  As I review my underwhelmed state with iPhone 3.0,  the commenters suggest I have no idea of what I speak nor proof to counterbalance the voices in my head.  The. Voices. In. My. Head.

The Apple fans seemed shocked that anyone’s nagging voice in their head could possible come to any other conclusion other than the iPhone rocks.  That was when the Spanish war broke out.

Spanish seems to get through our language filters, which I assume we have in place.  Awesome, the leaders of tomorrow will learn lewd comments only from tech blog comments.  And if you wish to debate the voices in my head and tell them how wrong they are about the Pre and the iPhone, have at it, take a number, line forms to the left.