Beyond Binary

T-Mobile USA said late Monday that it is resuming sales of the Sidekick after pulling it off the shelves in the wake of last month's massive outage.

The wireless carrier said that the Sidekick 2008 will now sell for as low as $49 with a two-year contract, while the Sidekick LX 2009 will be priced at $149 with a two-year contract.

T-Mobile Sidekick LX

(Credit: CNET)

"T-Mobile is pleased to announce that Sidekick sales have resumed," the carrier said in a statement.

The company is still dealing with the aftermath of the outage, which left customers without access to their data for weeks. Most customers have now been able to get much of their data back, although photos are being e-mailed to customers rather than being restored to the device.

Although sales have resumed, the question is whether the device will ever be able to regain the confidence of consumers.

It's also an issue for Microsoft, whose Danger service powers the Sidekick. The software maker on Tuesday is expected to announce another key cloud-based effort, the final version of Windows Azure.

Vitamin D, a start-up formed by three ex-Palm executives, is releasing a public beta of software that consumers can use to detect human motion in their security cameras and create rules on what to do when someone is spotted coming or going.

(Credit: Vitamin D)

The great thing about security cameras is the fact that they let you record things without needing to have a human being physically there.

The downside is that, in most cases, it takes a human being to figure out whether there is anything interesting there. Sure, there is motion-sensing technology, but such systems are often fooled by animals, cars, or even by a tree rustling in the wind.

Three former Palm executives think they have some software that could help shake things up. Their company, Vitamin D, is releasing a public beta on Monday of software that can detect and isolate human motion, potentially allowing the growing number of surveillance cameras out there to be a whole lot more useful.

The software, which works on either PCs or Macs, puts a yellow box around any human motion it detects and can be further refined to show only someone coming or going from a particular area--say entering or leaving through a particular door. The software is designed to work with any IP camera or even an inexpensive Web cam.

Getting in the surveillance game is admittedly a bit of a shift for early Palm employees Greg Shirai and Rob Haitani--two guys who have spent most of their careers creating consumer gadgets.

But, after years of listening to Palm and Handspring founder Jeff Hawkins talk about his brain research, Shirai and Haitani, along with Celeste Baranksi, another ex-Palm executive, thought they had a way to make a business out of it. "We were always fascinated by what Jeff was doing," Shirai said. Vitamin D's software is powered by artificial intelligence technology licensed from Hawkins' Numenta start-up.

Shirai and Haitani say they are starting with the security camera industry because that's the first application the technology can be used in. But over time, they hope to refine the technology such that it can have broader uses, such as powering object-based search within video streams.

Haitani gave a preview of the technology at this year's Demo conference. There's also a video of the technology in action on Vitamin D's Web site.

Using artificial intelligence makes the system remarkably adaptable, Haitani said, something that is not the case even with very high-end systems that use various rules to try to identify humans.

Vitamin D's software, for example, is able to pick out two people carrying a lawn mower, someone crawling, or even a person pushing a stroller--all shapes that don't look a lot like what an algorithm might think of as human.

"You can see how the shape-based rules quickly break down," Haitani said.

The technology isn't perfect. It isn't well suited to nighttime work, or anything where there isn't sufficient light. "We actually would not do well in poorly lit scenes," Shirai said.

Shirai and Haitani have been using the software at their homes and office to try it out. They haven't caught any thieves yet, though there was one scare, Shirai said.

He noticed a group of people struggling at the company's front door early one morning.

"I thought, oh my gosh, there are these people breaking into our office," Shirai said. In reality, he had found something far less sinister--what time his office's cleaning crew came each day.

Haitani said he also learned that his house is frequented by hummingbirds when he is not there. "Apparently my front lawn is this crossing path," he said.

For those who have security cameras, particularly consumers and small businesses, Vitamin D's software can offer significant time savings. Going through all the motions detected in hundreds of hours of video--even if one only spends 5 seconds on each clip--could require hours of work. By contrast, narrowing it down to just humans might cut that workload down to just minutes, as the two demonstrated last week, showing me examples from their collection of surveillance tapes.

The software will be free during the public beta, though the company hopes to start charging for a final version in the first half of next year.

Other potential customers could be law enforcement or even the intelligence community. Indeed, In-Q-Tel, the investment vehicle for the intelligence community, is among Vitamin D's early investors, along with HTC, the cell phone maker that Haitani and Shirai know well from their Palm days.

NEW YORK--As nearly everyone already knows, Barnes & Noble is officially entering the e-reader business on Tuesday with the launch of the Nook, a $259 device with an e-ink display as well as a secondary color touch screen.

I'm on hand at the Chelsea Piers event to provide live coverage and share whatever surprises might be remaining.

4 p.m. EDT: The event hasn't started, but I can tell you all of the rumors and leaks are basically true. It looks like what you think, and you will be able to lend e-books to a friend who can read it on their Nook or other device compatible with Barnes and Noble's software.

Also, there are some high-fashion cases from Kate Spade New York and Jonathan Adler.

(Credit: Barnes & Noble)

4:20 p.m. EDT: Things are about to get started.

4:23 p.m. EDT: Barnes & Noble CEO Steve Riggio kicks things off, noting company's entire management team and some of its directors are at the event.

4:25 p.m. EDT: Riggio noted that the company has innovated in the past, re-imagining the college bookstore, becoming the first major bookseller to discount and then moving online, including being the first to offer e-books (an effort it abandoned several years later).

Books, he said, are still a huge market, bigger than music, Riggio noted. "This industry that we are all a part of is still a huge industry."

Launch of software in July was first step to e-books, he said. Today, is the second step.

4:30 p.m. EDT: "Thank you for bearing the Obama blockade to get here," William Lynch, president of Barnes & Noble.com. President Obama is going to be at Columbus Circle this afternoon for an event, leading to extra traffic snarls in the area.

Lynch leads a technology team based in Palo Alto, Calif. Notes that they have had over a million downloads since they launched their e-book store in July. Lynch gives a nod to the Que, the large screen Plastic Logic device due out next year. Barnes & Noble is powering the Que's book store.

4:35 p.m. EDT: "Simply following the leader is not in our DNA," Lynch said, introducing the Nook. Rolls video with some of the details--It supports PDF, uses AT&T's wireless network, can be customized with photos.

4:37 p.m. EDT: Can choose up to five fonts, 2GB of memory on board with Micro SD slot. Nook owners can add pictures, music and personal documents. Use of touchscreen and Android means new features can be added over time.

"LendMe" technology lets users lend a book for up to two weeks from one Nook to another. They demo using Malcolm Gladwell's "The Tipping Point." Mid-demo, Gladwell comes on stage in person and starts reading from his book.

"Just to be clear Malcolm Gladwell does not come with the book," one executive quipped. However early Nook customers will get a free copy of "The Tipping Point" with their e-reader.

4:45 p.m. EDT: Riggio notes Nook will be sold in all Barnes & Noble stores this holiday season, adding that the retail stores will be a huge advantage, with its 40,000 store workers serving as ambassadors to help customers understand e-books. In-store users will be able to browse complete e-Books in store at the stores over the Nook's built in Wi-Fi.

4:46 p.m. EDT: Pre-orders begin tonight online and soon in stores, but device itself won't be in stores and ship until the end of November. As mentioned, it will cost $259.

4:47 p.m. EDT: Riggio promises more to come. "We're going to blow you away with what we've got in store in the future," Riggio said.

4:48 p.m. EDT: Formal event is over, but there is a media Q and A, so we'll try and find out about Web browsing, apps and other questions.

5:00 p.m. EDT: Got some answers.

No Web browser: We think browsers on e-ink are a really clumsy experience," said Lynch.

As for apps, nothing to announce today, but the company did choose Android in part because it liked fact that lots of people were developing for Android.

"It's not lost on us there will be a lot of development on Android," Lynch said.

Lending does work from Nook to other devices, as I indicated earlier. However, they noted that some books are lendable and others are not, per the wishes of the publishers.

The Nook supports PDF and ePub formats, as well as legacy Fictionwise, but not, Microsoft Word.

Wi-Fi is only in the store, for now, to allow streaming and free content.

5:09 p.m. EDT: More from the Q and A session.

The touch screen is capacitive, similar to the iPhone. Library e-books could be side loaded onto the Nook if they are in PDF or ePub format.

"We're committed to being extremely competiitve on e-Book pricing, whatever that means," Lynch said.

Lending works similar to in the physical world. If you have lent a book to someone else, you don't have access to it while it has been lent.

5:13 p.m. EDT: The company is exploring creating an e-Reader application for other Android devices and also plans to support Windows Mobile.

Lynch said that the company has also been talking with publishers about the notion of bundling where those that buy a physical book would also be able to get a digital copy.

T-Mobile Sidekick LX

(Credit: CNET)

Microsoft has begun the process of restoring data to Sidekick owners who have been without it since a massive outage began at the beginning of the month, the software giant said Tuesday.

In a statement, Microsoft said it has posted a tool to T-Mobile's Web site that allows Sidekick owners to restore their address book.

Although it initially feared that much data might be lost, Microsoft said last week that it expected to be able to recover most, if not all, of the information. However, the company also said that the process of bringing back the data will go beyond this week.

Here is the full statement:

The Danger/Microsoft team continues to work around the clock and has completed its latest round of rigorous tests. We are now ready to make the first phase of the content restoration process available to you, starting with personal contacts.

This data restoration effort is only necessary for the minority of customers who lost data from their Sidekick devices.

Beginning today, log into the My T-Mobile website, where there will be a recovery tool to restore contacts you may have lost during the recent service outage. This tool will enable you to view the contacts you had on your device as of October 1. With a few clicks and a confirmation, you will be able to restore these contacts to your Sidekick. If you have recreated some of the same contacts on your Sidekick since October 1, you can choose to keep both sets of contacts, merge them, or just keep the set of contacts now on your device. You may also edit any partial or complete duplicates on your Sidekick after restoration.

We continue to work 24 hours a day, 7 days a week to restore your data. We're making solid progress on the next phase in this restoration process, including your photographs, notes, to-do lists, marketplace data and high scores.

We appreciate your ongoing patience.

NEW YORK--Barnes & Noble's forthcoming electronic book reader will be called the Nook and sell for $259, according a report in The Wall Street Journal.

The Journal, citing a forthcoming ad for the product, also says the device will feature the ability to lend electronic books to others as well as a widely reported dual-screen display that features an electronic ink display and a smaller color touch screen.

The bookseller is expected to unveil the device at an event here on Tuesday. Leaked photos of the device cropped up last week. Also, as I noted earlier on Monday, Barnes & Noble has received FCC approval to start selling an electronic book reader.

The field, long dominated by Amazon's Kindle, is quickly becoming more crowded. In addition to a new crop of devices from Sony, a host of others have either announced products or plans for products that combine an e-ink display and wireless connection.

Plastic Logic said on Monday that its larger-screen Que device will be out early next year, while start-up Spring Design announced plans for a device that sounds a whole lot like the Nook, though a spokeswoman told CNET News that the company was not involved with Barnes & Noble's device.

Microsoft on Monday apologized for the length of time it is taking to restore missing data to T-Mobile Sidekicks. The company said it expects to begin restoring data this week, but added that bringing back all data will take longer than that.

T-Mobile Sidekick LX

(Credit: CNET)

In a note on its Web site, Microsoft said that the reason for the delay is that the company wants to make sure that it doesn't risk messing up data as it restores information to users' phones.

"The Danger/Microsoft team is continuing to work around the clock on the data restoration proces," Microsoft said. "We apologize that this is taking so long, but we want to make sure we are doing everything possible to maintain the integrity of your data."

A significant number of Sidekick owners have been without their data since the beginning of the month, when Sidekick data service became interrupted amid a massive outage. At one point, Microsoft feared much of the data was lost, but the company said early last week that things were looking better and later added that it expected to be able to bring back most, if not all, of the data.

"We continue to make steady progress, and we hope to be able to begin restoring personal contacts for affected users this week, with the remainder of the content (photographs, notes, to-do-lists, marketplace data, and high scores) shortly thereafter," Microsoft said.

Spring Design's Alex e-reader, announced Monday. Could it offer clues about the expected book gadget from Barnes & Noble?

(Credit: Spring Design)

It's not like it wasn't already pretty clear that Barnes & Noble is planning to do an e-reader, what with the leaked photos and invitation and all.

But for skeptics who needed more convincing, the company has also received FCC approval to start selling such a device. The OK came last month, but most of the juicy parts--the external photos and user manual and stuff were marked confidential.

It should all become totally official on Tuesday, when Barnes & Noble has its event at the Chelsea Piers in New York.

Meanwhile, a company called Spring Design on Monday announced plans for a dual-screen Android-based e-reader that sounds a whole lot like what was depicted in those leaked photos.

In its press release, Spring Design said it is working with "selected strategic partners" to have the device on the market by the end of the year.

According to the announcement, Spring Design's device features a 6-inch e-ink screen and a 3.5-inch color display, and has full browsing abilities.

"This is the start of a whole new experience of reading content on e-books, potentially igniting a whole new industry in multimedia e-book publishing for secondary authors to create supplementary content that is hyper linked to the text. We are bringing life to books with audio, video, and annotations," Spring Design CEO Priscilla Lu said in a statement. "This gives readers the ability to fully leverage the resources on the Web, and the tools available in search engines to augment the reading experience."

Also, Spring Design's device is called Alex, while Barnes & Noble's device is said to be called Alexa.

Updated 11:30 a.m. PT: A Spring Design representative said that, although it is in talks with all major book players including Barnes & Noble, it is not involved in the product that Barnes & Noble is set to introduce on Tuesday.

Plastic Logic has given a name--but not a launch date--for its forthcoming e-reader.

The e-book reader, which can display electronic books as well as PDFs, PowerPoint, and other business documents, will be dubbed the Que, the company is announcing this week. Plastic Logic said it will show off the Que at the Consumer Electronics Show in January, at which time it will announce pricing, availability, and other details.

Plastic Logic plans to show off the Que at CES in January, at which time it will announce pricing, availability, and other details.

(Credit: PlasticLogic)

The product was originally slated for launch this year, but the company said in March that it would not arrive until early next year.

As previously detailed, the Que will have both Wi-Fi and a connection to AT&T's wireless network and is about the size of an 8.5-inch-by-11-inch pad of paper.

The big question facing Plastic Logic is how much of its thunder will have been stolen by the time it launches. Since the company first showed its prototype last year, Amazon has updated the Kindle and introduced a larger-screen Kindle DX, while Sony has also enhanced its product line.

"We're not worried about that at all and I think the main reason is that our reader is so different," Plastic Logic CEO Richard Archuleta said in an interview. "We haven't seen anybody even come close to what we're doing with our product."

Archuleta noted that the Que has a bigger screen that the Kindle DX and also has a user interface that lets users easily jump around within a document and among multiple documents.

Barnes & Noble, which powers the Que's bookstore, is widely expected to debut its own e-reader at an event in New York City on Tuesday.

In addition to Barnes & Noble, Plastic Logic also has content partnerships with USA Today, the Financial Times, Zinio, LibreDigital, and Ingram Digital.

The T-Mobile Sidekick LX.

(Credit: CNET)

When the T-Mobile Sidekick started having data problems two weeks ago, it was a big pain for nearly all of the company's roughly 800,000 subscribers. But it became particularly rough for the many deaf people who have been among the Sidekick's most loyal fan base.

"It was severely limiting and made me very dependent on others," Carla McCraw, a Web designer from San Antonio, Texas, said in an e-mail interview. "This loss of independence was very stressful on me."

McCraw said she relies on her Sidekick to manage everyday tasks, from keeping up with closures at her son's day care to whether soccer practice will be rained out.

"It was extremely frustrating, not being able to know, and my mother had to call the soccer coach and day care, making me feel extremely inadequate," she said. "I had to rely on the Internet through (alternative services such as) Yahoo and Facebook to let my friends know my Sidekick was down."

The good news, for both deaf and hearing users, is that Microsoft and T-Mobile appear to be making headway at restoring much of the data that, at one time, appeared gone permanently.

But even an outage can be a big deal for those that use the Sidekick as something of a communications lifeline.

Lisa Gault, a deaf Sidekick owner in Katy, Texas.

(Credit: Lisa Gault)

"As the outage went on, I became concerned about how my deaf teenage son would be able to communicate in an emergency," Jamie Berke, an About.com guide based in the Washington metro area, said in an e-mail.

"I know he is not the only one," said Berke, who is also deaf. "The outage probably meant that thousands of deaf children who depend on their Sidekicks to communicate with parents were unable to communicate in the event of an emergency. Plus, I myself, would have been unable to communicate in an emergency."

The Sidekick became an early favorite in deaf circles because of its good keyboard, then-state-of-the-art instant-messaging abilities, and ability to connect to relay services. T-Mobile improved things further by adding a data-only option so that deaf users weren't paying for voice minutes they didn't use.

Because the Sidekick didn't evolve as fast as other smartphones, many users--deaf and hearing alike--moved to the BlackBerry and other devices. And after their recent experiences, many of the remaining Sidekick users in the deaf community have said they are considering jumping ship, once their T-Mobile contracts end.

"I am going to look into Sprint's BlackBerry, which more and more deaf people are taking up, and have complimented, and (said) that it is a lot more reliable," McCraw said.

Lisa Gault, a deaf Sidekick owner in Katy, Texas, said she in an e-mail interview that she relies on the Sidekick as a means to stay in touch with her family.

"It's a way for the school to get a hold of me, if something were to occur with my son who is (not deaf)," Gault said.

Gault said that even short of an emergency, it is a problem not to get her e-mail for an extended period.

"It's annoying, as my friends think I'm ignoring them, when in reality, I didn't get the e-mails yet," Gault said. "It really put the deaf community at more of a disadvantage--more so than for hearing people, since we're so reliant on e-mail (devices) to keep in touch."