Sony will soon add a Google Internet search feature as part of a software update for the PlayStation Portable.
Sony PSP
(Credit: Sony)On the PSP blog Monday, Sony said the new upgrade, v4.00, "replicates the Google Internet search experience.
PSP users will need to be connected to the Web via Wi-Fi. The move represents Sony's continued efforts to expand the Internet features of the handheld. Of course, what users really want is an easy way to download movies off the Web.
Nonetheless, the company continues to force users to buy the much rejected Universal Media Discs (UMD), the mini DVDs that Sony built especially for the PSP, or hack the device with video converters.
Sony said the upgrade will also give users the ability to change speeds on playback of video stored on Memory Stick PRO Duo. This allows the viewer to scan quickly through a movie or slow it down.
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.
Last month, Apple started to include Safari 3.1 in a list of applications available from its Software Update program.
Now Apple Software Updates distinguishes between new software and updates.
(Credit: Asa Dotzler, Mozilla)Among those complaining was John Lilly, the CEO of Mozilla which makes the competing Firefox browser.
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."
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.
The old way: including new programs like Safari in with updates of already installed programs.
(Credit: CNET Networks)"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.
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.
A lot of people appear to be bent out of shape about Apple using its auto-update service to distribute the Safari Web browser on Windows. The CEO of Mozilla, which makes the rival Firefox browser, calls it bad business.
In a blog on Friday, Mozilla CEO John Lilly criticized Apple's practice, uncovered this week, of offering iTunes and QuickTime users Safari 3.1 on Windows through the Apple Software Update pop-up.
Lilly says that automatic updates are a good way to ensure people have the most recent and secure versions of software. It's a practice that Mozilla uses with the Firefox browser.
What's different in what Apple is doing is that it is adding a product to the auto-update list that users never requested. That means they could very easily install software unintentionally, he argued:
Apple has made it incredibly easy--the default, even--for users to install ride along software that they didn't ask for, and maybe didn't want. This is wrong, and borders on malware distribution practices.
It's wrong because it undermines the trust that we're all trying to build with users. Because it means that an update isn't just an update, but is maybe something more. Because it ultimately undermines the safety of users on the Web by eroding that relationship. It's a bad practice and should stop.
Easy for users or a breach of trust?
(Credit: CNET Networks)An Apple representative issued an e-mailed statement on the matter to Information Week: "We are using Software Update to make it easy and convenient for both Mac and Windows users to get the latest Safari update from Apple."
Meanwhile, my colleague, Tom Krazit, in a post on Friday argues that people should become more aware of the software on their systems and think before they install.
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