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Adobe Systems has delayed by a few weeks the release of some upgrades to its Photoshop.com online service and to its high-end Photoshop CS4 software.

The upcoming Photoshop site upgrades include features to import address book entries from Hotmail, Yahoo Mail, and Gmail to improve photo sharing; an uploading tool to synchronize software on a person's PC with the version stored online; and new pricing options. They had been due Tuesday but now will go live "later this month," Adobe said in a statement Monday night.

Also slipping a few weeks is the Photoshop CS4 Configurator, a tool to let people create customized control panels for the image-editing software. It had been due in October, but now it and another new CS4 option, the Pixel Bender filter gallery, won't debut until later in November, John Nack, senior product manager for Photoshop, said in a blog post. Pixel Bender is a technology enabling high-performance special effects that Adobe hopes will be easier to use than earlier plug-in filter technology.

"We decided to give both tools a little extra bake time, so look for them to appear on Adobe Labs within the next two weeks," Nack said. "Also stay tuned for a Camera Raw update for CS4 that'll include a number of nice little surprises."

Update 3 p.m. PT: T-Mobile confirmed its Android phone is still on track, too.

Google denied a report Monday that phones using its Android software have been delayed to 2009.

The Street reported the delay, citing an unnamed source. But Google denied the report.

A view of Google's Android mobile-phone software, demonstrated at Google I/O.

(Credit: Stephen Shankland/CNET News.com)

"We're still on track to announce Android-powered phones this year. Some of our partners are publicly stating that they plan to ship Android phones in the fourth quarter," Google said in a statement.

That's little surprise, given that Android leader Andy Rubin last week said phones using the soon-to-be-mostly-open-source software will be "available in the second half of this year" just last week at the Google I/O conference.

T-Mobile plans to ship an Android phone later in 2008, Chief Executive Hamid Akhavan said in February.

T-Mobile confirmed on Monday that its Android-based phone is still on track to arrive in the fourth quarter.

One source of possible Android confusion could be that although Google and various partners are collectively writing the Android software, Google isn't the only one supporting it.

Android software overseen by Google will appear in the first Android phones, but Android software overseen by partner Wind River Systems will appear in later models expected in the first quarter of 2009, said John Bruggeman, chief marketing officer of Linux seller and Android partner Wind River.

"They (Google) did the first phone. They carefully handheld it all the way through," Bruggeman said. "We've got the rest."

Wind River supports Linux in embedded computing devices but will support the full Android software "stack," which extends to higher-level software as well.

"When Android is open-sourced, we will support the entire stack," Bruggeman said. "We've ramped up our infrastructure. We are resourced to be able to support Android and not just Linux--the messaging and telephony and e-mail and browsing."

Barely a month after Jeff Bezos' very public mea culpa over delays, Amazon's Kindle is apparently back on the virtual shelves.

The e-tailer's listing page for the e-book reader indicates that it's in stock and available for purchase, at the usual $399 plus free two-day shipping.

After the Kindle had sold out so quickly after its launch in November last year, there had been some speculation that the delays were caused by production problems or were planned deliberately to stoke more demand. But as Craver David Carnoy indicated, it was probably just a victim of holiday shopping madness.

This is just getting silly.

The makers of the popular Slingbox have been promising the SlingCatcher for almost a year and half now. And once again, the projected release date will come and go quietly.

Sling Catcher delayed again. This time, they're crossing their fingers for a release date sometime before the end of this year.

(Credit: Sling Media)

Gregg Wilkes, vice president of sales for Sling Media--which is now owned by EchoStar Communications--told a frustrated customer in an e-mail that the goal to release the device during the second quarter of this year will not be met.

Wilkes writes: "Will the catcher ship in Q2? No. We are upgrading the user experience and making enhancements to the feature set. These may or may not all ship at the same time. Will the Catcher ship in '08? All indications point to this happening in 2008."

The SlingCatcher is a set-top box, separate from the Slingbox, that brings video content from a Slingbox to another TV in a house, or from an external hard drive. The SlingCatcher also lets users project Web content to a TV screen, either wired or wirelessly, through an application called SlingProjector.

The device was originally introduced at CES 2007, and shown again at CES 2008, which was when Sling was floating the Q2 time frame.

If you happened to have visited Amazon's Web site today, you might have noticed that a large message from Amazon's CEO, Jeff Bezos, was plastered across the home page of the site. Basically, it was a big fat apology for Amazon's inability to ship its Kindle electronic book reader in a timely fashion.

Ever since it quickly sold out at launch, a lot of folks have been speculating about just how many Kindles Amazon had sold and whether the long delays in shipping were a case of production problems or a PR ploy designed to make the Kindle appear hotter than it really is.

Well, the note seems to speak for itself. People want the Kindle, and Amazon hasn't been able to make them fast enough. All that said, I still think this was a case of the company rushing to get the product out before last year's holiday season--and failing to iron out all the production issues before it went to market.

Of course, Amazon is new to the consumer electronics-manufacturing game, so this isn't shocking. The fact is, this is what happens when you're a pro at selling crap but not at producing it. Comments?

(Credit: Microsoft)

If you ordered one of those Valentine's Day Zunes, there's good news and bad news.

The bad news is that Microsoft is running way behind on shipments and may miss the holy Feb. 14 deadline "due to some issues in our fulfillment center," according to an e-mail cited by Gizmodo. The good news is that the same e-mail says Microsoft is refunding the entire amount to those whose orders are in jeopardy--meaning that the media player will be free regardless of whether it gets there on time.

A sales rep confirmed the unfortunate situation--or fortunate, if your relationship has gone sour while waiting for delivery--telling Crave last night that the refund applies to those who bought the special red 80GB Zune by Feb. 4. So no, don't think you can order one now and get it for free. We already thought of trying that.

Sigma's DP1 prototype, shown at PMA in March 2007

(Credit: Stephen Shankland/CNET News.com)

Sigma has delayed the debut of the DP1, a high-end compact camera with an unusually large image sensor, to redesign its image-processing technology.

The Japanese company had shown off the DP1 at the Photokina show in 2006 and later at the Photo Marketing Association show in March 2007, where it said it planned to ship the DP1 in the summer. The camera's sensor, made by start-up Foveon, is as large as the one used in Sigma's SD line of SLR cameras, offering the potential for much greater sensitivity and dynamic range than the much smaller chips typically used in compact cameras.

By the summer, the DP1 design had reached "pre-beta" development stage, said Kazuto Yamaki, Sigma's chief operating officer, in a note published Friday on the company's Web site. But after testing and comparing images with those produced by Sigma's SD line of SLR cameras, the company concluded it needed to back up and redesign some elements.

The sensor size on Sigma's DP1 compared to a common 1/2.5-inch size.

(Credit: Sigma)

"The images looked OK, but they clearly did not have the special image qualities that we see in our SD cameras: delicate, refined, and three-dimensional images rendered in fine detail," Yamaki said. "After a careful evaluation, we found that the image-processing pipeline we had developed for the DP1 was not ideal for achieving the best image quality as it was intended for the faster image processing speed, and we needed to make major revisions to it...After long and sometimes intense discussions, we finally decided to change the entire image processing pipeline."

The camera prototype had been designed with a 28-mm-equivalent f/4 lens and the Foveon sensor. Image processing was handled by Sigma's True chip, short for Three-layer Responsive Ultimate Engine, which Sigma boasted was four times faster than alternative products.

What of that technology will remain isn't clear. "We had to change some of the specifications that we had announced," Yamaki said.

The redesigned camera entered alpha tests during the beginning of November for "what we feel will be the final design," Yamaki said in the note, but said it's not yet possible to predict when the camera will go on sale. "I deeply apologize for the length of the time you have been holding out for the DP1 and appreciate your patience very much. I know it is difficult for some of you to wait a little more time, but we're working very hard to deliver a camera that we think will be worth the wait."

(Via The Online Photographer.)

Life is good at Apple these days. Around 1.39 million iPhones sold. Soaring earnings. A new OS on the way. The Mac is gaining ground on the rest of the PC industry. The company can do no wrong. But that hasn't stopped a handful of critics from getting upset over one of the new iPhone ads currently running on a TV screen near you.

The ad in question is "Delay," which depicts an alleged airline pilot, Bryce, talking about how he used his iPhone's weather.com app to help avoid a major delay. The ads have gotten some of the folks over at FlyerTalk's forums pretty riled up.

Marathon Man, a poster from Massachusetts, started it all off by saying: "So I just saw for the first time this Apple iPhone commercial where a pilot (or some crew member that could be one) is standing there telling us that his iPhone was able to ... Read more

As part of its effort to get its first cars out of the door, Tesla Motors is putting its battery business on ice for a bit.

(Credit: Michael Kanellos/CNET Networks)

The electric car company back in January said it was going to sell its battery pack--composed of thousands of lithium-ion battery cells--to third party manufacturers. Interim CEO Michael Marks, however, made the decision to suspend the program in September when he also decided to push out the release of the car and scale back production a bit. Although a few Tesla Roadsters may come out this year, the bulk of the first cars will come out next year. Fifty are due in the first quarter. The delays in the battery program, however, were not flagged then.

Tesla's first and so far only announced customer was going to be Think Global, which is trying to come out with an electric town car.

"We delayed the program with Think until we had roadsters on the road," said Darryl Siry, vice president of sales and marketing at Tesla.

As a result, Think has been lining up alternative battery suppliers. A deal with EnerDel was announced yesterday. EnerDel will be the "supplier of choice" for Think.

It is unclear if the switch in battery providers will delay Think's car, but it could. It's a major change. In September, the company told The Norway Post that it wanted to get the initial cars out in November. Think has made cars with other types of batteries--the company grew out of a dying electric car project from Ford. EnerDel won't deliver prototypes until next March and preproduction batteries until July 2008. Still, Think is not aiming to get large numbers out of the factory at first anyway. The company in July, a few months before Tesla changed management, said it only planned to start producing 250 cars a month by mid-2008.

On a happier note for Tesla, it has also started to let customers who have put down deposits on the $98,000 Tesla Roadster take test drives with the latest prototype. They are doing 12 a week and many of the drivers are posting blogs about the experience (see link above). The test drives are taking place in the Skyline Drive and Highway 84 area. You know, the Alice's Restaurant intersection in the Bay Area.

Despite a few nitpicks here and there, the reviews are all fairly positive. (I've ridden in one and they are a lot of fun, particularly the subtle "whoosh" sound the electric engine makes.)

"I've certainly faced some raised eyebrows at my decision to write a check for $100,000 to purchase a car I've never driven, so if nothing else my thrilling test drive of VP10 was worth it just to explain that I have been behind the wheel, and come away impressed," wrote Josh Hannah.

Hannah, though, did get passed by a Subaru Roadster. He wanted to be cautious.

No entries yet from Sergey, Larry, George Clooney or San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom yet, who have all allegedly put down deposits.