IT Spot

Arthur C. Clarke, the science-fiction writer who died last week, inspired and intrigued millions with his “deceptively dry voice of cosmic wonder,” writes New York Times science reporter Dennis Overbye.

Clarke was best known as co-creator of 2001: A Space Odyssey. But Overbye has cherished Clarke’s writing since boyhood. He reflects on several of the brilliant stories that poured forth from Clarke’s imagination and helped Overbye discover his life’s path in science: “I haven’t lost my taste for cosmic mystery, for the curiosity about what might lie around the curve of the cosmos that Clarke first instilled in me.”

Read the full New York Times essay: “A Boy’s Life, Guided by the Voice of Cosmic Wonder”

Bar owner Rufus Terrill has enlisted a rather odd-looking security guard to chase away prostitutes and drug dealers milling about his Atlanta tavern: an R2-D2-like robot called “Bum Bot 2000.”

The patchwork device is controlled via remote control and targets law-breakers, reports The Los Angeles Times. But homeless advocates aren’t too fond of Terrill’s water-squirting Bum Bot.

Read the full Los Angeles Times story: “Robot reports for security duty in Atlanta“

Offering financing services to customers is nothing new for big computer hardware makers. Unfortunately, running into trouble because of those vendor financing programs is almost as common.

Tucked into a piece on Apple and patents on Barron’s Online is an interesting tidbit about Dell. No, Dell hasn’t been handing out loans for houses in suburban Las Vegas or some other distressed real estate market. This appears to be an indirect deal. It seems the Texas computer maker, thanks to its partnership with troubled lender CIT Group, could surprisingly find itself stung by the subprime loan mess. At one time, CIT owned a 30-percent stake in Dell Financial Services, which was founded about 11 years ago to provide leasing programs to small businesses. Dell has been unwinding the relationship with CIT for nearly two years and bought back the last percentage in the fourth quarter of 2007.

(Credit: Dell)

How much of a problem CIT’s issues could pose to Dell is hard to say. Here’s where the numbers get tricky: At the end of the fourth quarter, Dell had $2.1 billion in financing receivables on its balance sheet. Of that, $450 million of customer receivables had been facilitated through CIT, according to a Dell spokesman. At the same time, Dell had $10 billion in cash. Barron’s reported about 9 percent of Dell’s 2008 sales have been generated through the financial services arm, but the CIT link for that 9 percent should be less than in the past years.

Does that mean Dell won’t see any of that $450 million if CIT, which has been hammered by defaults on subprime loans (among other issues), should continue to falter? No, but there’s at least some exposure there. It could be another aggravation for Dell, but the fallout would pale in comparison to other problems the computer maker has faced in recent years, such as exploding laptop computers. The Dell spokesman said the company is assessing the CIT situation (the two companies still partner) but hasn’t made a definitive decision what to do about it.

CIT is facing bleak prospects. Some Wall Street analysts are calling for the company to sell itself to a bigger financing outfit, like General Electric’s commercial lending arm. A Monday Wall Street Journal article explains the predicament for the once high-flying outfit.

So why do computer companies do vendor financing if there’s so much risk? Because they have to, particularly if they’re looking to sell equipment to small businesses. But loaning money to customers comes with risk: It can be a temptation for some executives to fudge the books. Also, if customers go under or the financing goes awry, the equipment maker can end up holding the bag.

Could Dell end up holding the bag to the tune of $450 million? Not likely, and it’s difficult to put a dollar figure on the CIT problem at the moment. But it’s one more headache Michael Dell & Co. would probably be happy to avoid.

Netflix customers on the East Coast who might be expecting a little red package on Tuesday may be disappointed.

The largest online video-rental service has suffered a technical glitch that has knocked out its Web site as well as its logistics and delivery systems, according to a Steve Swasey, a company spokesman.

The malfunction, which the company won’t reveal, began at about 7 a.m. PT. Netflix has now missed the deadline to mail shipments for orders from the East Coast that were scheduled to go out on Monday, Swasey said.

He added that should the eight-hour outage continue for a few more hours it could also push back orders from the West Coast, Swasey said.

“We hope to begin shipping again on Tuesday,” Swasey said.

More to come

Even the mightiest graphics boards bow to Crysis. And Nvidia’s newest dual-graphics board is no exception.

First some background. Crysis is a science fiction computer game developed by Germany-based Crytek and published by Electronic Arts.
“Crysis is visually stunning, packed with intelligent, thrilling gameplay, and easily one of the greatest shooters ever made,” according to GameSpot (which is owned by CNET Networks). For hardware reviewers, it’s the ultimate gaming test of a graphics card.

Nvidia’s GeForce 9800 GX2 contains two graphics chips.

(Credit: Nvidia)

Though so far the reviews of Nvidia’s GeForce 9800 GX2 are positive (”The GeForce 9800 GX2 is an absolute powerhouse, the fastest graphics card you can buy today”–The Tech Report), it stalled when faced with the gaming equivalent of Everest’s north face, running Crysis at its highest settings.

“The 9800GX2 is no magic bullet for Crysis,” said Rich Brown, a senior editor at CNET Reviews, responding to questions. The GeForce 9800GX2 “was still unable to achieve 60 frames per second, which is generally considered the goal for acceptably smooth gameplay in first person shooters.” he said.

Another review discussed similar issues when antialiasing (a technique for smoothing the jagged edges of curved objects) was turned on. “When antialiasing is activated and the card should be showing all it has to offer, its performance drops to the same level as the other cards,” according to Tom’s Hardware.

Optimally tweaked drivers are another hurdle in getting games to run well on the latest and greatest hardware. Particularly in the case of multi-GPU configurations using Scalable Link Interface (SLI). Nevertheless, Crysis has yet to meet its match at the highest settings using mass-market graphics cards.

Upcoming four-way configurations using SLI made be up to the challenge. We’ll see.

For some lucky New Yorkers living in two of Manhattan’s largest mega-apartment complexes, Fios super high-speed Internet access is here. As for the rest of us living in New York City, we’ll have to suck it up and deal with sub-10 megabit per second speeds.

Verizon said Monday it has struck a deal with Tishman Speyer Properties LP to deploy the Fios fiber-to-the-home service to Stuyvesant Town and Peter Cooper Village, the two biggest apartment complexes in Manhattan with 110 buildings and over 11,000 apartments covering 18 city blocks along the East River of Manhattan.

But for most of the 8 million people living in New York City, such as myself, Verizon’s fiber network, which offers 50 megabit per second downloads, is only a dream. And now we have yet another reason to be jealous of the lucky folks living in what was once a rent stabilized enclave for middle-income New Yorkers.

Seven buildings in the complex have already been hooked up to the fiber network, according to the Associated Press. And the rest of the deployment is expected throughout the spring and summer.

Initially, Verizon targeted single-family homes in its roll-out of Fios. About a year ago, it started targeting apartment buildings in major cities like New York City. I was excited about the news when it first came out. Until I talked to my contacts at the company who sadly told me it was highly unlikely that my six-story walk-up on the Upper West Side of Manhattan would ever be considered for Fios.

Currently, Verizon has deployed Fios to a handful of high-rise apartments in each of the city’s five boroughs. Residents today are only able to get telephone service and high-speed Internet. But the company is negotiating a TV franchise deal with the city, the AP reported.

This means that unlike most New Yorkers, Stuyvesant Town and Peter Cooper Village residents will soon have three choices for their phone, TV and high-speed Internet services: Time Warner Cable, RCN, and now Verizon.

Stuyvesant Town and Peter Copper Village were built by the insurance company MetLife in 1947 to house returning veterans from World War II. And up until 2006 when it was sold for $5.4 billion to real estate developer Tishman Speyer Properties, the complex offered thousands of apartments to working class families far below market-rate.

The apartments are known to be much more spacious than most shoe-box sized apartments in Manhattan. And because many of the apartments were rent-stabilized, living there was the envy of many New Yorkers in a city that has seen rents and property values soar decade after decade. As you might imagine, scoring one of these apartments was like winning the lottery. For years, I daydreamed about what I would do with all the saved rent money and all that wonderful living space had I ever been able to live in “Stuytown.”

Today, many of the rent-stabilized apartments in Stuyvesant Town are gone and rents are just as high as they are all over the city. But now that residents are getting Fios, which offers broadband downloads up to 50 mbps and uploads up to 20 mbps, I’m green with envy once again.

I understand that it’s not financially practical for Verizon to spend the capital to dig up streets and lay fiber to my tiny building. But I think I speak for millions of people in Verizon’s territory, who see the Verizon Fios TV commercials and will never be able to get the service, when I say, “If you can hear me now, Verizon, please bring fiber to my home!”

Don’t forget your loofah sponge

(Credit: G Patkar )

I’ve already raved about the prospect of relaxing in a posh first class on the new Airbus A380, but now Dubai-based Emirates Airlines seems to have raised the bar for in-flight amenities. As the Times of London reported yesterday, Emirates is promising first class passengers the use of a shower. Details on the first class cabin and the shower are sketchy but with its “seven star”
Burj Al Arab Hotel, Dubai knows true (and somewhat ridiculous) luxury.

It’s certainly a novel idea, and it would give a new meaning to the idea of the mile-high club, but environmentalists are already attacking the scheme as irresponsible. According to the Times, a shower-equipped A380 need to carry an extra ton of water for each flight, which is equal to 12 passengers. That would mean a carbon cost of 48,455 pounds for every round trip flight. That’s certainly a legitimate worry but frankly, I’d be more concerned about showering during turbulence.

The shower service will be available on New York-Dubai flights starting in October but Emirates says it will expand the treatment to its entire A380 fleet. But before you get too excited, you may want to check the fare. A first class ticket could cost about $18,000.

Music players are losing out in popularity to phones that pull double-duty, according to a market research report released Monday.

More than 500 million music phones were shipped worldwide in 2007, which puts that category of device 300 million units ahead of regular old portable music players, according to the report released Monday by MultiMedia Intelligence. The company is forecasting that by 2011, of the 941 million handsets that will ship worldwide, more than half will be music phones. (The report defines a music phone as a handset that plays music files, and has a memory card slot.)

The Walkman-branded W980 phone from Sony Ericsson is a phone but looks like a music player. Phones that play music are quickly outpacing standalone portable music players.

(Credit: Sony Ericsson)

As the developed world begins to be saturated with cell phones, handset manufacturers and wireless operators are forced to look elsewhere to keep their profits up. For leading handset maker Nokia, its secret to staying on top of the competition is its growing business in emerging markets, like China, India, the Middle East, and Africa, according to my CNET News.com colleague Maggie Reardon.

The operators of wireless networks also need ways to increase revenue. So, though not everyone has a need for a data plan if they don’t want e-mail on their phone, music is something almost everyone can relate to. Right now the most promising driver of profits on cell phones is music-playing capability.

“Music has been the first ‘killer app’ for the operators to drive the consumption of premium content on the handset,” said Frank Dickson, chief research officer for MultiMedia Intelligence. To that end, MMI predicts the mobile music market will be worth $6 billion by the end of this year. “With such significant revenue and customer demand at stake, the operators’ and handset providers’ concerted efforts (will) use music as a central part of their handset strategies,” the report says.

The proposed union of XM Satellite Radio and Sirius Satellite Radio won approval Monday from the U.S. Department of Justice, after more than a year of review.

Antitrust officials said they concluded that combining the only two satellite radio players would not “substantially lessen competition,” beating back concerns raised by consumer groups about price hikes and an intense lobbying campaign from broadcast radio operators.

“The evidence did not show that the merger would enable the parties to profitably increase prices to satellite radio customers for several reasons,” the DOJ said in a statement.

The deal still awaits a decision from the Federal Communications Commission, which had warned that the companies had high hurdles to surmount before gaining approval.

Stay tuned to CNET News.com for more on the deal’s approval.

A Google executive may have inadvertently tipped the wireless industry’s hand on the launch time frame for Android phones.

Ever since introducing Android, a mobile-phone operating system, last November, Google has said that Android-loaded phones would be available in the second half of this year. However, on Monday, Richard Whitt, Google’s Washington telecom and media counsel, put a finer grain on the launch expectations during a conference call about Google’s plans for the “white spaces” spectrum, saying the phones could be out as soon as summer or fall of this year.

This Android prototype, show at Mobile World Congress in February, could be a shipping product by fall.

(Credit: Lluis Gene/AFP/Getty Images)

After the call, Google representatives reiterated that the launch expectations for Android phones were unchanged at “second half of 2008,” emphasizing that the exact launch schedule is up to Google’s partners. However, Google is likely privy to that schedule, since they’d probably want to show up for the party or something, and just about all of summer–and all of fall–takes place during the second half of the year.

The debut of an Android phone in the summer or early fall could give Google and its partners a chance to test the market during the back-to-school or holiday shopping bonanzas in the second half of the calendar year. IDG News Service reported last week that HTC was developing an Android phone called “Dream,” that would be out “near the end of this year.”

The report also said that Samsung was racing with HTC to get an Android phone out the door, meaning perhaps other handset makers have accelerated their plans.

CNET News.com’s Anne Broache contributed to this report.