kenadanson.com

Preliminary results of the voting were not immediately available following the close of Apple’s annual meeting of shareholders, but the proposal required a simple majority to pass. Another shareholder proposal to create a board committee on sustainability and environmental protection was rejected.

Scott Adams, representing the AFL-CIO, urged shareholders to demand a “say on pay,” bemoaning the runaway surge in executive compensation. “The U.S. system for paying the CEO is broken,” he said.

Later, during an open question-and-answer session, Apple CEO Steve Jobs joked, “I’m hoping the say on pay proposal will help me with my dollar a year.” Jobs draws just $1 dollar a year in salary, but is a major shareholder in the company and tends to receive other forms of compensation, such as stock grants. Last year Apple said it was considering additional forms of compensation for Jobs.

Apple had no immediate comment on the approval of the non-binding resolution.

CUPERTINO, Calif.–Apple shareholders approved a non-binding resolution Tuesday asking the board of directors to give shareholders input on executive compensation.

To my untrained eye, it’s hard to tell exactly what the folks are doing in the snow up there in Kitchener. And, being that this is April 1, I suppose I should don my hat of skepticism and wonder if maybe someone’s trying to play a little joke on those of us who weren’t there to hear the secret whispers of those involved.

Players of the new alternate-reality game The Lost Ring take part in a training session for the ‘lost sport of Olympia,’ the human labyrinth late last month, according to the alternate-reality game’s lead developer, Jane McGonigal. Whether or not the activity is an April Fools’ joke is not entirely known.

As first reported on CNET News.com in early March, ‘The Lost Ring’ is sponsored by McDonald’s and the International Olympic Committee.

So I trundled over to Flickr, where one of the major players of The Lost Ring, a fellow called thebruce0, or Geoff May, has a bunch of pictures from the training session.

(Credit:
The Lost Ring)

Well, it’s been a couple of weeks since we had anything here about The Lost Ring or its lead designer, Jane McGonigal, or how the game works. So, it seemed like a good time to catch up with the players and see what they’re up to in the snow in Canada.

The piece quotes McDonald’s Chief Marketing Officer Mary Dillon as saying, “The Olympics in Beijing are a very big event for us, and we have a lot of different types of activation, with The Lost Ring being the most creative. Our goal is really about strengthening our bond with the global youth culture.”

(Credit: Flickr user thebruce0)

I suppose if you want to find out, you’ll need to dig your way through the forum threads on Unfiction.org, one of the main community Web sites devoted to ARGs.

As for me, I have to figure out what the proper revenge is to take on a colleague who has decided that today, finally, is the perfect day to discover Rickrolling and to spend the day perpetrating that crime against humanity on everyone in the newsroom she can think of.

(Credit: Flickr user thebruce0)

I appreciated that The Times got someone from McDonald’s on the record about this. When I first wrote about the fast food company’s involvement, as well as that of the International Olympic Committee, last month, I didn’t get a chance to speak with them, so it’s good to get their thoughts on the matter.

Players in Kitchener, Ontario gathered in the snow for the human labyrinth training exercise.

But, then again, maybe these folks really were taking part in a legitimate exercise in the long and still unraveling story line that is The Lost Ring.

It turns out that up in Kitchener, Ontario, a bunch of players spent some time over the last few days taking part training for the “lost” sport of Olympia, the human labyrinth, McGonigal told me Tuesday morning. Of course, the overarching story line of The Lost Ring is to discover the great lost sport of the Olympics.

Over at The New York Times on Tuesday, Stephanie Clifford has a piece (Free registration required) pointing out that McDonald’s is the main sponsor of the new Olympics-themed alternate-reality game, The Lost Ring.

May also posted a video of the exercise.

Not to be left out, Nokia also knocked out a few phones of its own. The Finnish company’s big announcement was the Nokia N96, a much more powerful version of the N95, with a 5-megapixel camera, 16GB of internal storage, a microSD card slot, a music player, quad-band support, and more. It’s definitely sexier than the N95, but if you want to get one that is unlocked, it’ll cost you about $780. Nokia also introduced the Nokia 6220, which has a 5-megapixel camera, 20x zoom, as well as Carl Zeiss optics. Other phones Nokia announced were the Nokia 6210 Navigator with built-in GPS, and the Nokia N78, which will be compatible with Nokia’s Music Store and N-Gage mobile gaming platform. Finally, Nokia also debuted its Ovi photo-sharing service.

February 11 has come and gone, and it turned out to be a busy first day at the GSMA Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, Spain. Before the show even began, Senior Editor Kent German gave us a little preview of the convention scene, and Bonnie Cha tells us her woeful tale of her stolen wallet. But work must go on, and Kent managed to get a hands on with the Samsung Soul, a slider handset packed with HSDPA, a 5-megapixel camera, and a new navigation pad with a display that changes its icons depending on what feature is being used.

Back on the new phone trail, Sony Ericsson also debuted several phones, such as the incredibly slim Sony Ericsson Z770 with HSDPA support, the Sony Ericsson W980 Walkman phone with “shake” control, and a brand new G-series of phones with touchscreens. The G700 and the G900 “touch-screen organizers” sport the Symbian OS, while the G900 is more geared for photography thanks to its 5-megapixel camera. But Sony Ericsson’s real camera phones are the C702 and the C902–the C702 has a 3.2-megapixel camera with 2x zoom, while the C902 has a 5-megapixel camera with 16x zoom. Sony Ericsson also dropped a smart phone bombshell–it’s making its first ever Windows Mobile device, the Xperia X1, which has a QWERTY keyboard slider, plus support for HSDPA and HSUPA, as well as Wi-Fi.

LG introduced the LG KF510, an absolutely gorgeous slider phone with tempered glass plus a 3-megapixel camera, as well as the KS20, a Windows Mobile phone that is all touchscreen (like the Prada). There’s also the LG KT610, which has a QWERTY keyboard, as well as built-in GPS.

Though Motorola announced its commitment to the mobile phone industry, the company didn’t have as many hot announcements. The Z6w looks like a Rizr clone, but it supports Wi-Fi plus a 2-megapixel camera, and a music player The W161 and W181 are two basic candy bar phones that are just phones.

(Credit:
Kent German/CNET Networks)

(Credit:
Nokia)

On the tech news front, Microsoft announced that it will buy Sidekick maker, Danger, and Nvidia announced that it wants a piece of the mobile phone market with a standalone graphics processor made just for mobile phones coming next year. Mobile advertising start-up, JumpTap, said it will provide advertising and search services for seven TeliaSonera carriers in Europe, Cisco further defines its role in the mobile industry, and Texas Instruments has just made a new OMAP chip, and it’s not only for mobile phones.

The Nokia N96 makes calls.

(Credit:
Crave UK)

Sony Ericsson Z770

Of course, one of the biggest news items out of GSMA this first day is that Google Android prototypes are finally showing up for people to see, and CNET News.com’s Marguerite Reardon managed to get her hands on it. She gives us her first impressions, and what the Google people have to say about the future of the Android platform.

Stay tuned for the rest of the week for complete CNET coverage of the GSMA Mobile World Congress.

The original was released two years ago, and the iRecord Pro came out earlier this year, adding support for more devices (including the
iPhone and iPod Touch), a timer that lets you set recording times, and the ability to transcode MPEG-2 video files stored on a computer to the device’s preferred H.264 video format. Today, the company announced support for the iPhone 3G as well.

It’s a bit expensive for an accessory–the Pro costs $259.95–but worth it if you like to grab content from a wide variety of audio and video sources for your iPhone or MP3 player, and don’t want to muck around with a computer and recording software in the middle.

(Credit: Streaming Networks)

CNET Reviews posted a great article last week on the best MP3 players for people who like to record audio directly to a device without the aid of a computer. (The article referred to these people as “pirates,” rather than “lawful archivers of personally owned content.” Argh, mateys!) I second their strong approval of Toshiba’s Gigabeat U, and generally think the Gigabeats were sorely underrated.

But what if you’ve already got an
iPod, as sales statistics suggest more than 70 percent of you do? Streaming Networks’ iRecord is the answer. Connect any device with an S-video or composite video (or audio-only) output to the iRecord, connect the iRecord’s USB output to your iPod or other MP3 player, hit the record button, and you’re on.

The iRecord Pro gives you an easy way to import audio or video from almost any source to your iPod, without a computer.

Neal Dikeman is a founding partner at Jane Capital Partners LLC, a boutique merchant bank advising strategic investors and start-ups in clean tech. He is also the founder of Carbonflow, a provider of software solutions for the carbon markets.

One other way to look at this issue is that much of the innovation in new ways to abate carbon is coming from CDM under Kyoto, not the voluntary markets. A bit sad, and a challenge to the voluntary standards community to get its act in order. Possibly the rise of new standards like Voluntary Carbon Standard and Green-e Climate will help fix the crisis in complexity, but we have been saying that for a while. As Susan puts it, we need it to happen yesterday.

The punchline in our chat was quite fascinating–the U.S. voluntary carbon market does not reward complexity in projects, Susan says. Basically, U.S. carbon credit developers are only doing a few limited types of projects, like methane destruction. Why? Because the buyers, who dictate the voluntary markets, tend to be scared off by anything complex that they do not understand, or anything that does not appear to be future proofed against coming U.S. regulations. This stands in stark contrast to the CDM market, where complexity is often the hallmark of the major developers since the methodology and standards process is trusted to a much greater degree by compliance buyers than the voluntary standards are.

I had a lively discussion with Susan Wood, CEO of SCC Americas, at the Carbon Finance North America Conference last week. SCC Americas is the U.S. arm of Syndicatum Carbon Capital, one of the largest developers of Kyoto-based CDM carbon credit projects in the world. Susan herself has been doing emissions trading for more than a decade, after starting out as an environmental engineer.

The other, code-named Diamondville, is a single-core processor for ultra-low-cost laptops. Intel refers to the low-cost notebook design as “netbook” and estimates the pricing for these devices will go as low as $250. Diamondville is a tiny 45-nanometer processor that employs a simpler design than standard Intel processors,

Intel also rebranded its Menlow chip as the Centrino Atom–a low-power companion chip with integrated graphics, a wireless radio, as well as thinner and lighter designs.

Intel announced Sunday that is has chosen the name “Atom” for a new family of ultra-small chips.

The “Atom” moniker will be applied to a family of chips with two members that are expected to be released later this quarter. One–previously know as Silverthorne–is a low-power mobile processor destined for the next generation of mobile Internet devices. It incorporates a new low-power state, allowing it to essentially shut down in between processing tasks and limit power consumption.

Following a storm of criticism, Apple has changed its Software Update software to mark a distinction between new programs, such as its
Safari on
Windows browser, and updates to existing ones.

Now Apple Software Updates distinguishes between new software and updates.

“This is a good first step. Now Apple needs to stop checking the box for “New Software” items by default. With that change, I think I’d be pretty happy to let the Apple Software Update service back on my Windows machine,” Asa Dotzler, director of Mozilla community development, wrote Thursday.

The old way: including new programs like Safari in with updates of already installed programs.

(Credit:
CNET Networks) The folks at Mozilla noticed the change but don’t appear fully satisfied.

Last month, Apple started to include Safari 3.1 in a list of applications available from its Software Update program.

In a blog, Lilly said that Apple’s practice was “wrong” and bad for the industry “because it undermines the trust that we’re all trying to build with users.”

Among those complaining was John Lilly, the CEO of Mozilla which makes the competing
Firefox browser.

Now, Apple’s Software Update has two separate boxes, one labeled “New Software” and the other labeled “Updates.” Before Safari 3.1 was under the “Updates” box and there was no “New Software” heading.

An Apple representative told Computerworld that the change was done to distinguish new software from updates but declined to say whether it was in response to criticisms or whether Apple may leave the “New Software” box unchecked, as Mozilla’s Dotzler suggested.

(Credit:
Asa Dotzler, Mozilla) That practice got many people riled up, complaining that Apple was essentially deceiving people into installing a new program–Safari 3.1 for Windows XP–through a program meant to update already installed applications, namely iTunes and QuickTime.

In a way, successful open-source projects have thrived in much the same way. Linux is popular because it focuses on its consumers first. Same with Apache and MySQL. These are not “consumer” applications in the way that, say, Apple’s iMovie is, but they are consumer-ish in the way I’m describing because they put the end user’s experience first in the equation, rather than the cash in her pocket.

Google has won the search wars primarily because Google focused first on pleasing consumers. It didn’t try to stripmine the search experience in search of every last penny of profit from ads, the way Yahoo! and Microsoft did. These latter two littered their pages for years with absolute rubbish, neon advertising, making the search experience feel like Vegas.

commentary

Another (overused) way of saying this is that Apple has “consumerized” the computing experience. As it turns out, enterprises employ consumers. Lots of them.

But it’s not just Apple.

I’m rereading Businessweek’s excellent article, “The Mac in the Gray Flannel Suit,” and it became very clear why Apple is succeeding in the enterprise despite not focusing on the enterprise.

If you’re an open-source or proprietary company, there’s a lesson in this. Focus on adoption first. Focusing on adoption helps a company to fixate on how to make software (or hardware) enjoyable, and not necessarily what will make it sell better. The sales follow the adoption.

Apple has made computing pleasant.

Apple’s secret is that it cares more about the consumer experience than in milking its potential market for every last penny. It could hire an expensive enterprise sales force, but lets its users sell the Mac experience instead.

Focus on the average users within your potential user demographics, not the alpha geeks. Average people buy more software than the uber-geeks do. Microsoft learned this long ago, lowering the bar to computing. It has lost its way of late as it tries to complicate the user experience a bit by adding bells and whistles designed to drive upgrades, not customer satisfaction. That’s why it’s slowly starting to lose.

For those commercial open-source vendors out there, this means your first order of business should be to focus on adoption and the user experience, rather than proprietary extensions (if any). These may be convenient, but they will corrupt priorities if they are the first order of business.

As we focus on the unwashed masses rather than the elite, which begs a focus on adoption first, software will become easier to use and more pleasurable to use. Like Apple. Like Google.

I love my
Mac. I love its look and feel. I love the software. I actually look forward to using my Mac. It’s not a Dell, dude. It has class.

Not Google. It focused on adoption first. It focused on making the search experience simple, fast, and useful.

The moment you’ve all been dreading has finally come. Dell says that June 18 is going to be the last day that you can order a desktop or laptop with an OEM version of (almost) everyone’s favorite operating system, Windows XP. According to details posted on the Dell Web site:

Per the Microsoft Windows life-cycle policy, direct OEM and retail license availability for Windows XP will end-of-life (EOL) on June 30, 2008. To meet Microsoft’s June 30 last-day-to-ship OEM Windows XP deadline, June 18 is the last time to purchase a Dell laptop, desktop, or workstation with an OEM Windows XP license (or while supplies last).

 
After June 18, you have the option to purchase
Windows Vista Business or Windows Vista Ultimate with a downgrade service to Windows XP Professional.

 
This option will be available on XPS 630, 720 H2C, and M1730 systems. After June 18, Windows XP will no longer be offered on currently available Inspiron desktops.

This “downgrade” option hasn’t been fully sketched out yet, but presumably, it involves eating the cost of a more expensive Vista license, and this being Dell, paying some kind of modest fee.

Better get on board the XP train soon…

XP isn’t totally dead, however–Microsoft will still offer it to individual system builders until January 31, 2009, and a suddenly popular stripped-down version will continue to be available for Netbook-style laptops, such as the Asus Eee PC and Dell’s own (still not officially announced) E series.

News.com has more on the XP end-of-life plans plans of different PC makers here.

The LG Prada II

Last month, we showed you a sneak peek of the LG Prada II, which will supposedly have a slide-out QWERTY keyboard as well as touch-screen controls. Well, the Boy Genius Report has dug up some supposed specs of the Prada II, and it looks to be quite good. Features include quad-band GSM/EDGE as well as dual-band HSDPA (!), a 5-megapixel autofocus camera with flash and VGA recording, Bluetooth 2.0, Wi-Fi, a motion sensor, and an FM radio.

(Credit:
Boy Genius Report)

We’re pleased with the dual-band HSDPA announcement, as it means we’ll probably see it stateside. Whether it’ll be picked up by a U.S. carrier remains to be seen, however. The 5-megapixel camera is also very promising, as is the addition Wi-Fi. Do keep in mind that these specifications haven’t been confirmed yet, but if they are, we’re extremely excited to see the real deal when it does come out.