Coop's Corner

The waiting's over. Spore, one of the most widely anticipated computer games, is finally coming to market. So how does it stack up?

Obviously, there's been a lot of hype around this project--not the least being because Spore's inventor is something of a demigod in gaming circles. But if Will Wright satisfies--or beats--expectations, Spore may become one of the biggest developments in the computer game business in years.

Kevin VanOrd from our sister site GameSpot has one of the first reviews of the product up online. You can read his review here. Kevin also swung by the CNET News Daily Debrief set earlier Thursday to talk more in detail about his impressions. Listen in on our conversation.

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This didn't take long. Just one day into Chrome's young existence and serious privacy questions are getting raised. Sleuthing by my colleague Ina Fried turned up the following:

The auto-suggest feature of Google's new Chrome browser does more than just help users get where they are going. It will also give Google a wealth of information on what people are doing on the Internet besides searching.

Provided that users leave Chrome's auto-suggest feature on and have Google as their default search provider, Google will have access to any keystrokes that are typed into the browser's Omnibox, even before a user hits enter.

What's more, Google has every intention of retaining some of that data even after it provides the promised suggestions. A Google representative told CNET News that the company plans to store about 2 percent of that data--and plans to store it along with the Internet Protocol address of the computer that typed it.

So much for "Don't be evil"? That's probably a stretch, though I have the feeling that Google was so eager to push this product onto the Web that it failed to let its wiser heads add their two cents. Nothing here that can't be remedied as you only need to turn off the auto-suggest feature to prevent Google from getting its hands on your personal data.

Meanwhile, Google has since backed away from its initial insistence on claiming the right to display and distribute any content transmitted through the browser. In a statement released earlier Wednesday, Google said, "In order to keep things simple for our users, we try to use the same set of legal terms (our Universal Terms of Service) for many of our products. Sometimes, as in the case of Google Chrome, this means that the legal terms for a specific product may include terms that don't apply well to the use of that product. We are working quickly to remove language from Section 11 of the current Google Chrome terms of service."

I wouldn't get too excited about any of this. Truth be told, however, the privacy kerfuffle around the Chrome Web browser was entirely avoidable--and it wouldn't have slowed down its sales juggernaut either. Google can learn the lesson in advance of the next big product roll-out.

Earlier Wednesday, I sat down with Ina on our Daily Debrief segment for an extended chat about all this.

Click here for full coverage of the Google Chrome launch.

Unlike most first-time authors, Judy Estrin was guaranteed an audience from the moment she decided to put pen to paper.

With one of Silicon Valley's more renowned resumes, Estrin helped launch seven companies in a career spanning two and a half decades.

Judy Estrin

So it was that she decided to offer her own policy prescriptions on the myriad economic challenges facing the United States.

The problem with so many books of this genre is that most are boring beyond belief. It's hard to believe these same former executives forged successful careers by spouting the kind of mind-bending platitudes they routinely cram into their memoirs. Then again, that's in line with the happy talk routinely offered up in public as a substitute for serious policy debate.

Happily, Estrin resisted that temptation and instead turned out a hard-hitting cri de coeur that is reaching bookstores at a particularly opportune time. As the country gears up to choose its next president, the upcoming publication of Closing the Innovation Gap: Reigniting the Spark of Creativity in a Global Economy should be required reading by Barack Obama and John McCain.

What Estrin offers is a marvelously frank polemic, distilling the experience and wisdom of a 25-year career to consider the profoundly troubling confluence that she says threatens the future of this country's innovation ecosystem, one Estrin describes as "even more eroded and unstable" than she ever imagined.

"I thought I was going to have trouble (selling the idea) in that people weren't going to believe we had a problem," says Estrin, who began writing the book in 2006. "At the time, people in general were feeling pretty good from an economic prospective."

Two years later, the chickens have come home to roost.

"The severity of our problems has really become more apparent to the everyday person or whether it is the price of oil, whether it is the prime mortgage problem," she says.

Estrin was lucky with her timing. But several of the problems she writes about have been around for years. To wit:

• Our national research community is suffering from neglect. The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development ranked the United States 22nd in the percentage of GDP that nations spend on nondefense research.

• Estrin laments the focus on short-term financial transactions at the expense of building for the future. A "culture of instant gratification" has set in, she says, where "anything that is not seen as being directly connected to short-term gain is viewed as highly discretionary at best, if not an outright waste."

•  In post-September 11 America, Estrin says the response to complicated, global questions needs to be better aligned with realities on the ground. "When fear becomes the driving force in a society, people stop asking questions, instead of looking to the world around them for insight and collaborative potential."

•  Science has become too vulnerable to nonscientific objections. She notes instances where religious ideology has impacted decisions whether or not to fund or restrict scientific inquiry or school curricula.

The following are excerpts from an extended conversation I recently had with Estrin.

What drove you to write the book?
Estrin: I spent about a year presenting (this idea) in different environments and as I presented to different people it became clear to me that there was some concern about innovation, but not enough. A lot of people think that innovation is a sound bite, but there were a lot of people in the business world who were struggling with what really makes for innovative cultures. More than that, I began to realize that there were broader issues in the country in terms of the culture and the environment that had made my career possible. And the more I interviewed people, the more concerned I became and the more passionate I became about the topic.

You raise several troubling questions about the state of what you describe as the innovation ecosystem. When you finished the book were you more pessimistic than when you began it?
Estrin: When I began the book I was very focused on the problems in Silicon Valley and the problems in business of a short-term perspective on Wall Street. By the time I finished the book, I actually had become more alarmed about the breadth of the problems.

You write that the U.S.' innovation ecosystem is "even more eroded and unstable than you ever imagined." Not exactly an optimistic, "morning in America" message, is it?
Estrin: I'm not an alarmist by personality. I have to be hopeful because we have no choice. We really have to address these issues or else we're just going to keep going down.

When I was interviewing people, some of the people I interviewed would say to me, "You know, give it up. America has just lost it. It is no longer a superpower, it is in decline and there's nothing you can do about it." Then I would talk to other people, who would say, "This is just all about market cycles and the market will take care of itself. So, go write a business book on innovation, but from a country perspective, there's nothing the government could do." It was almost like they wanted to say, just recognize time constraints and the market will take care of itself.

I don't believe the market can take care of itself this time because one of the problems is that the market has become very, very short-term focused...I'm not one of those people that says the government can solve all our problems, but I believe that where we are right now actually is somewhere in between those two perspectives. We need leadership from the top to provide the inspiration and the spark. There are some places where we need some policy changes and some strategically placed funding to be able to get the incentives aligned to solve some of these problems. Then we need business and educational and nonprofit leaders to work with government to figure out what we're going to do to.

Is your answer, then, an electoral change with different people in charge?
Estrin: There's no question we need different people in charge. There's no question we need new leadership for the country.

You note that eight of China's nine top leaders are engineers, while the ninth is a geologist. Do you think China is going to be out-innovating the U.S. in 20 years?
Estrin: If we do nothing, there's no question about it. But I believe that the level of freedom and individuality that we have historically had in our culture provides the framework for that type of (disruptive) innovation more than you'll find in a more structured society. If you look at China, Japan, or at some other nations, they tend to be more hierarchical and more structured and so that leads them to innovate in the areas where you need to apply scale. I think that if we can get back our culture of openness and freedom and a culture of valuing science and paying respect to it, then no one can beat us in that area.

At the Intel Developer Forum, (former CEO) Craig Barrett, complained that the U.S. isn't doing enough to spur R&D compared with the rest of the world. Apropos, you write in your book that science is becoming too vulnerable to nonscientific objection in this country.
Estrin: I'm very, very, very concerned about that. When you look at making changes in our education system, you want to make decisions based on evidence and data. You don't want to make decisions based on who is in office or what geography you're trying to play up to. You make those decisions based on scientific data and scientific facts. You need people who can look at that and then make the decisions based on that input. Unfortunately, in the last decade, the scientific community has been treated like a special interest group, as opposed to being used as a resource.

Is it a question of getting more people with scientific backgrounds into elected office?
Estrin: It isn't so much even that Washington needs to be populated by people who are scientists, but we need people in Washington--whether it is Congress or the president or the people who run the agencies--who have an appreciation for science and understand the role that science plays in solving problems.

Listening to you I'm wondering whether you have any aspirations to go into political life?
Estrin: Why do you ask?

Well, when you have someone making this kind of social and economic critique who comes from the business community, you can't accuse them of being a soft-headed bureaucrat who believes in government handouts.
Estrin: Right.

So, you're someone who has been a serial entrepreneur with an established CV in Silicon Valley. You have the bonafides.
Estrin: I didn't write this to put forth a political opinion, but I did come out of writing it with a stronger opinion about the country and government than I ever had before. You asked whether I aspire to run for anything--the answer is no because I just don't think that's me. I would much rather talk about these issues and evangelize and help whoever is in power do the right things than run for office.

The last time I flew out of San Francisco, my laptop battery conked out as we passed Salt Lake City. Considering how I was stuck in cattle class with no chance to recharge the unit, I closed the computer in disgust and proceeded to slip into a deep sleep.

(Credit: CNET News)

If my laptop drops dead one more time because the battery's out of juice, I may go postal. I know. There are worse things in life. But how lame is lithium ion? I'm sure that my frustration's not unique. Many (most?) of you have surely engaged in the same frantic race against the clock, typing furiously as the computer's battery icon wastes down to empty. And Murphy's Law being what it is, there doubtless was not an electrical unit in the same time zone.

Of course, some laptops are better at power management than others. Still, three hours, maximum, is about the best you can hope for. That's no bargain. But such is life in the lithium-ion era.

Now a start-up called ZPower says it's come up with a battery technology breakthrough which it claims will result in 40 percent longer laptop life than lithium-ion on a single charge. The company says it has struck a deal with "one of the major" PC makers to use its silver-zinc batteries in a notebook line slated for 2009. The CEO, Ross Dueber, declined to get more specific than that.

I don't know if ZPower has the best answer, but speaking for the laptop shleppers of the world, I wish him well in his quest. Commercial lithium-ion batteries have been around since 1991, courtesy of Sony and an upgrade would be very welcome. Earlier in the week I spoke with Dueber, who was in town for Intel's big developer shindig. Check out what he had to say in this video interview we shot together.

Despite the early kinks attending MobileMe, what's not to like about the concept? I'll include Live Mesh in the category, though Microsoft still remains in beta with the product. Synchronizing e-mail, calendars, and contacts--it's a fine idea. Unfortunately, nobody has figured it out to anyone's full satisfaction yet.

Maybe that will soon change as more companies with the means and the motivation offer cloud-based storage to consumers. One recurring rumor has Google planning an upcoming consumer service with "infinite storage" called GDrive. Take rumors for what they are worth, but given Google's (growing) cloud-centric history, it's not unreasonable to expect an announcement along those lines.

Meanwhile, another name with the bonafides is thinking about trying its hand.

Dell.

I recently caught up with Praveen Asthana, who directs storage operations at Dell. While cloud-based storage so far has had an uneven reception in the market, he says the initial consumer reluctance to store valuable digital files "out there" is receding.

"What convinces me about this is that people now are comfortable putting their photos onto the cloud," he told me. "When you read about someone's house catching on fire, what's the first thing they try and save? It's the photos and the memories."

Of course, Dell knows that it is not guaranteed to succeed where others have failed. If it were that easy, Xdrive would have turned into a money machine for AOL. Instead, the company is looking to dump the service only three years after acquiring it.

At this point, Dell is not offering more details other than to acknowledge that the idea is under consideration. Also, it is not clear whether the company would go it alone or in collaboration with another company. But Asthana still believes the change in consumer behavior is for real and that it suggests a shift that will involve the entire user food chain. "I think it will start with consumers," he says, "and then go right up to small and medium business, and then corporations."

Perhaps. After its acquisition of EqualLogic last year, Dell now sells a broad iSCSI disk array product portfolio. The thinking is that Dell would be able to successfully extend its expertise as a supplier of storage hardware into storage services. It's obviously more complicated than that, but Asthana's boss is no stranger to applying managerial lessons learned in one area to another.

Michael Dell has proved himself to be one of the savviest operators in techdom. He built a multibillion dollar business by figuring out how to sell commodity PCs, servers, and service quicker than most. Each time it stumbled, the company learned from its mistakes and moved on. Consumer-based cloud storage no doubt would be a stretch, but didn't they say the same thing at other points in Dell's history?

If the scenario comes true, it would make for one heck of a scorecard with Dell conceivably facing off against the likes of Google and Microsoft (as well Apple).But with more people participating in digital photography and digital music--and all the attendant storage demands that follow--there's ample room for companies that can get it right. Besides, Michael Dell knows how to pick his fights.

Intel has invented a way to double the air flow generated by fans used to cool ultrathin notebook computers.

Demonstrating a prototype of the technology in public for the first time at its developer forum taking place this week in San Francisco, Intel says the upshot will be cooler computers--and it's not referring to style.

Fan prototype developed by Intel.

(Credit: CNET News)

"This will have the same power consumption and noise level of current fans," said Bradley Urban, an engineer inside Intel's thermal technology development unit.

As with other engineering advances coming out of its research side, Intel intends to license the proprietary design to computer makers--the idea being that anything which fosters more demand for Intel-based computers will, by definition, add to the company's bottom line.

Call it a product announcement by stealth: you'll find the technology demonstration in a nondescript booth at San Francisco's Moscone Center, a half stone's toss away from the myriad Atom-based notebook PCs Intel is putting on display at its developer forum.

In a side-by-side comparison, the Intel fan flow moves a Styrofoam ball around a track significantly faster. "It's a 2x comparison," Urban said. He added that Intel took less than a year to work out the kinks for a reliably faster fan to fit into ultrathin notebooks.

"As soon as we can get it into production, we will," he said. It was unclear how long this next step in the process will take before faster fans wend their way into the commercial market. "Maybe two years," he offered.

Click here for full coverage of the Intel Developer Forum.

IBM is making a $300 million bet that it can turn cloud computing into a lot more than the buzzword du jour.

(Credit: CNET News)

Big Blue is spending that sum to equip 13 data centers around the world with infrastructure that will let customers access a bevy of cloud-based computer services in the event service disruptions take down their networks.

The investment also constitutes the biggest investment IBM has ever made in this area, according to Brian Reagan, who directs the company's Global Strategy & Portfolio Management group.

"You either would have dedicated seats or essentially a replica of your work center at that data center (shared or dedicated)," he said. "By using a lot of these virtualization techniques, when you want to move your workspace from your office we would be able to transparently move your applications and desktop so you'd be up and running."

Although it's nearly impossible to guarantee 100 percent up time in the event of a man-made or natural disaster, Big Blue is treading on familiar terrain. Cloud computing dates back several decades to the era when mainframes ruled the computing roost. As Rob Enderle noted on a different occasion:

"Back when IBM was at its peak, it leased mainframes and was virtually recession-proof. Cloud computing, in its absolute sense, isn't computers you purchase for your own cloud, but services you subscribe to for your organization, which can be increased or decreased based on need."

In a similar way, IBM's latest move is to provide cloud-based storage on a as-needed basis. In the event of a service disruption, the company says its data centers would be able to electronically process the shift in information from customer sites in order restore service in a reasonable amount of time.

Again, the parallel with its mainframe past is hard to ignore as IBM is no stranger to running multiple customers on a single machine with a single application. This latest initiative is more complex, but the company is drawing on its experience with multitenancy.

Some of the technology IBM is employing here comes from its acquisition late last year of Arsenal Digital Solutions, whose rack-mounted storage appliances will provide the storage for information and applications data.

Clearly, IBM wants to press whatever advantage it believes it possesses in this segment of the technology field. Earlier this month, it announced plans to spend around $400 million to add cloud computing data centers in North Carolina and Tokyo.

Three Massachusetts Institute of Technology students who have been barred by a court order from discussing subway card vulnerabilities are now free to say what they want.

The University of Michigan released its annual ACSI scores for the PC industry, and Apple took top honors for the fifth straight year.

Plus, it isn't your usual Nokia jingle, but a campaign to promote condom use in India sponsored by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation is off to a strong start.

Today's stories:

U.S. mobile-phone sales take a hit

Android security team appeals to bug hunters

Georgia cuts access to Russian sites, TV news

Overheating iPod Nanos? Japan investigates

Apple extends MobileMe accounts--again

Palm leaks Treo Pro photos and videos

Intel: Sensors will be key to future computing

Google digs up funds for geothermal energy

Wish I could read minds because I'd love to know what the representatives from Comcast and Verizon were thinking as they listened to lobbyists from the recording and film industries push them to snoop on their customers.

All in the pursuit of upholding the law, of course. (Naturally.)

"We need the help of ISPs. They have the technical ability to manage the flow over their pipes," Shira Perlmutter, a vice president for global legal policy at the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry, said earlier Monday at a technology conference sponsored by the Progress and Freedom Foundation. "The good news is that we're beginning to see some of these solutions emerge, in particular in Europe and Asia." (IFPI is the Recording Industry Association of America's international affiliate.)

Clearly, the content industries have legitimate interests to protect, but I doubt that any of that would hold up in court. The idea strikes me as a perverse reading of the U.S. Constitution. You don't need to be a paranoid anchorite holding out in the remote hills of Montana to grasp where this policy prescription inevitably heads. But let's suspend that skepticism and momentarily assume that some ISPs would play along. Would you trust your friendly broadband provider not to monitor other prohibited items beyond pirated songs and movies? There would be no shortage of First Amendment lawyers queuing up to get a piece of this case.

Back to reality, what all this demonstrates for the umpteenth time is that the RIAA and MPAA still show themselves to be in possession of quite the tin ear. I'm not getting too exercised because broadband providers know how to count noses. While the issue got settled in court, this much is clear: we would witness the mother of all mass departures of subscribers to rival providers pledging not to monitor their customers.

The real problem facing the RIAA and MPAA is that they're still flummoxed seven years after (the original) Napster's shutdown on how to thrive in the digital world. First, they decided to unleash a legal jihad. Then it was off to use technology to disrupt high-traffic networks suspected of assisting illegal digital file swapping. Now it's pushing a Orwellian agenda where it's perfectly fine to spy because it's all serving a higher good.

Frustrated with political deadlock, solar energy companies fear a big setback if Congress fails to renew a key federal tax credit set to expire at the end of the year.

The provision would extend a 30 percent break of up to $2,000 to homeowners. Businesses would qualify for the same percentage, without a cap.

Barry Cinnamon, CEO, Akeena Solar

(Credit: Akeena Solar)

While the U.S. House of Representatives has passed a bill to extend the tax credit, the effort so far has failed eight times in the Senate--the latest defeat occurring on July 30.

"The delay in the ITC (investment tax credit) renewal has meant that large commercial jobs are being postponed" because of the risk that they can't be installed by December 31, said Barry Cinnamon, chief executive of Akeena Solar.

Registering concern for the future of their nascent industry, executives like Cinnamon note that the uncertainty over the tax credit's renewal has already contributed to the loss of small and medium commercial jobs. If the current logjam continues, they say the impact will likely hurt the commercial sector more than the residential sector as the residential credit is capped at $2,000--which is rarely a critical factor in a homeowner's decision-making process.

The irony is that industry lobbyists report bipartisan support for the provision in the Senate, where the vote fell nine votes short of the three-fifths supermajority needed. Six members did not vote, including Sens. John McCain and Barack Obama. (The national governor's association has also come out in support of granting a long-term extension of the solar tax credits.)

Josh Green, Mohr Davidow Ventures

(Credit: Mohr Davidow Ventures)

One source tied to the solar industry said that many Republicans were loath to support the extension "because they don't want to give the Democratic Congress any credit" before the election. Previous attempts also were stymied by oil lobbyists, who fought efforts to close a tax loophole on oil companies to pay for the tax credit extension.

As the calendar turns to the fall, the odds increase that the solar tax extension could become hostage to the presidential contest. Several executives involved with the solar industry said that tens of thousands of jobs will be put in jeopardy and more jobs won't be added next year if Congress fails to act.

"Many of these commercial projects are in important planning stages right now, and the overall industry is at the tipping point that will lead to widespread adoption," said venture capitalist Josh Green of Mohr Davidow Ventures, who predicted that the failure to renew the ITC will result in the delay or cancellation of important commercial projects in the United States. "The absence of the ITC will kill most, if not all, of this growing momentum. We need only look to the interruption of tax credits for the wind industry for an example of something that we do not want to repeat. This would be a real shame."

Lyndon Rive, CEO, SolarCity

(Credit: SolarCity)

At the same time, however, he suggested that the absence of an investment tax credit may have relatively little impact on businesses in the short to medium term. That's because the rapidly expanding solar markets in Europe, Asia, and the Middle East will not be affected by the controversy over the ITC and will still create plenty of customers for solar manufacturers.

"Over the longer term, however, the United States commercial market is far too important to be ignored," Green said. "A consistent ITC policy extending over several years that allows industry to grow and flourish is critical to the industry."

Despite the tough slog, though, industry players remain convinced that the U.S. government understands the investment tax credit's role and will press the case for continuing solar's domestic momentum.

Lyndon Rive, the CEO of SolarCity, a residential solar installer in California, said he remains "very optimistic" that the ITC will be renewed by the end of the year.

"The ITC has become a very politicized issue, however, and it's possible that approval could extend into 2009," he added. If the ITC is allowed to lapse, Rive predicted it would cost thousands of solar jobs and severely limit the growth of the solar industry in the U.S.

"The jobs lost in the U.S. would move overseas to more favorable solar markets," he said. "Solar power will eventually reach cost parity with other energy sources, but that will not occur in the next few years without incentives."

The worst-case scenario is painted by industry executives who envision a tremendously down year in 2009 for the solar industry with commercial installations grinding to a halt. To be sure, residential installations will continue to grow--especially in states where there are good rebates, such as in California, New York, and Connecticut. But companies that are most exposed are those that have built the bulk of their business on commercial installations. These companies will have to find some other way to pay their bills if the ITC doesn't win an extension.