August 02, 2005, 4:26 PM PDT
Nokia is number one
Posted by: Kent German

The Finns have done it again. Nokia remained at the top of the cell phone pack in the second quarter of this year by shipping the most cell phones out of any mobile manufacturer during this period. Nokia sold 60.8 million handsets from April to July, which accounts for 32.2 percent of the global market. Motorola was second in sales followed by Samsung, LG, and Sony Ericsson. Although Nokia has recently been outshone by flashy models from some of its competitors, the company attributes its strong showing to high sales of entry-level handsets. That's not surprising, really. Nokia has always done a good job of churning out simple, quality cell phones for beginner users. In fact, sometimes I think it has a big cookie cutter in its factory. That said, the company is increasingly focusing on rolling out glitzy, high-end models such as the N90. This week, Nokia also announced that former CFO Olli-Pekka Kallasvuo is succeeding longtime CEO Jorma Ollila, who is stepping down from his post.

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August 02, 2005, 2:56 PM PDT
Bloom off the Xbox 360 rose?
Posted by: Molly Wood

What is with all these game consoles turning out to be letdowns before they're even released? First, there were all the stories about Sony stripping features out of the PS3 in order to keep the cost down. Now there are rumors that the Xbox 360, while retailing for an expected (but steep) $299.99, will hit you with pricier-than-expected games ($60 and up) and will be more difficult to develop games for than the PS3--which means, possibly, fewer available games in the future. Help us, Nintendo Revolution. You're our only hope. (Sigh.)

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August 02, 2005, 2:43 PM PDT
AOL's last gasp
Posted by: Molly Wood

Can AOL win you over? After all those years walling off its separate, more-special-than-your-Internet content, America Online has rolled out a new portal, making all its previously subscriber-only content available for free. And the company will be spending more than $50 million on marketing, to convince you that you don't have to subscribe, you just have to go there and click. Which is a fine idea, but I still think AOL would be in the black if it'd quit spending so much money sending me CDs. No, really. I'm not just making an old joke. I got three of them last week.

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August 02, 2005, 2:08 PM PDT
Apple falls into "build a better mouse" trap
Posted by: Molly Wood

Did you know the Mac operating system has supported contextual menus (what Windows folks call "right-click menus") since OS 8.6? Yep. You just Ctrl+click to reach them. Yet, despite this capability, which persists to powerful effect in Mac OS X, Apple has refused ever to ship a two-button mouse. And it still refuses. Instead, in the oh-so-Apple way, the company has invented an all-new mouse, called the Mighty Mouse (do we smell a lawsuit?).

The new mouse looks like a standard one-click Mac mouse, but it has touch-sensitive sides so that it can detect a right- or left-click, and it features a tiny gray trackball that serves as a scrollwheel. Some other small buttons on the side, apparently, let you access features unique to Mac OS X Tiger. Why Mighty Mouse, instead of a standard, easily recognizable mouse with two buttons and some sort of pan-scrolling capability, the likes of which exist across the peripherals universe? Well, obviously, Apple says, those mice are too hard to use. Seriously. A mouse is so hard to use that you have to go and design a new, spectacularly unergonomic one with buttons in places mice have never had buttons, instead of just putting one extra button on the existing mouse? I will sincerely never understand this company.

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August 02, 2005, 8:10 AM PDT
PSP v2.0 firmware arrives stateside on 8/12
Posted by: Robert Dubbin

Engadget is reporting that Sony will officially release the PSP's v2.0 firmware in America on August 12. Of course, by then, pretty much everyone planning to make the update will have grabbed the readily available Japanese upgrade file; as a practical matter, the only significance of the August 12 date is that you'll be able to download the firmware flasher using the Network Update option on your PSP's main menu instead of manually saving it to your memory stick. So there's no real reason to wait, unless you're one of those conspiracy theorists who's holding out for an official release because you believe that all Japanese-upgraded PSPs will turn themselves on at the stroke of midnight on August 12, forming a distributed artificial intelligence network determined to enslave humanity. But honestly, how is an American firmware update going to help you if that happens?

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