Can Devices like the Kindle Fire Finally Pave the Way for a la Carte Cable?

Pundits asking whether the new Kindle Fire will be an “iPad killer” are way off the mark. It's a killer alright, but the victim is not who you think it is. “We don't think of the Kindle Fire as a tablet. We think of it as a service,” says Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos.

And the main competing service in his sights is cable TV.

The Fire, of course, is not the only killer gunning for cable. Amazon's streaming video service is available on dozens of TV-connected devices, including TiVos and Roku boxes. So is Netflix, which although it has stumbled a bit recently, is clearly positioning itself as a streaming alternative to cable. And of course let's not forget Apple, with not just its iTunes movie and TV offerings, but also Netflix on all its devices, including the Apple TV.

(IMAGES: Amazon's Kindle Fire and New Kindle E-Readers)

Cable operators are feeling the heat. Comcast and Time Warner, the two largest operators, have reportedly lost 1.2 million cable TV subscribers in the 12 months ending June 30. Many of these are said to be “cord cutters” who prefer the flexibility of online video, such as Amazon Instant Video, which lets them choose a la carte what they want to watch whenever and wherever they want.

Yet cable prices continue to rise. One reason is the climbing cost of programming itself. Cable companies (like Cox or Charter) pay programmers (like Disney or Discovery) to carry their networks, and in turn they charge consumers. Programmers have been hiking prices for their content, often as a result of access to sports content. ESPN, for example, recently signed a $15 billion, eight-year TV rights deal with the NFL, a 73% increase from their last agreement. That's one reason why the sports network is the most expensive channel to operators, at about $4 per subscriber. Yet the more prices go up, and the more choices like Amazon and Netflix are available, the more we can expect viewers to cut the cord.

In Turn to Politics, Facebook Starts a PAC

The Silicon Valley social media company has for the first time formed an old-fashioned political action committee and will use it to distribute cash to candidates in the coming elections. It is just one indication of how social media companies are integrating with the political landscape in a season in which these businesses are growing presences in the campaign conversation.

“FB PAC will give our employees a way to make their voice heard in the political process by supporting candidates who share our goals of promoting the value of innovation to our economy while giving people the power to share and make the world more open and connected,” a company spokesman said.

The move comes as technology companies like Facebook are moving quickly to increase their influence in Washington amid increasingly complex legislative debates about patents, monopoly status and concerns about the privacy of users.

And it reflects a new desire among the senior executives at Google, Facebook, LinkedIn and other companies to use their technologies to be part of the political process in ways that they have not before.

Google co-sponsored a Republican presidential debate with Fox News last week. On Monday, Facebook held a town hall-style meeting featuring top House Republicans, hours after LinkedIn held a similar meeting with President Obama.

Executives at Facebook declined to offer more details about the PAC or to say which races it would make contributions to. The company confirmed that the PAC was incorporated on Monday after it was reported that it had registered the Internet domains for Fbpac.organd Fbpac.us.

Facebook has steadily increased its presence in Washington as it has grown. It hired its first employee in the District of Columbia in 2007, and the office now has more than a dozen people, including four federally registered lobbyists. The amount the company has spent lobbying Congress has grown as well.

“The increase represents a continuation of our efforts to explain how our service works, as well as the important actions we take to protect people who use our service and promote the value of innovation to our economy,” said Andrew Noyes, a Facebook spokesman.

The company’s competitors are also increasing their presence in the capital as the competition for market dominance increasingly turns to legislative and regulatory fights.

According to disclosure documents filed in July, both Facebook and Google spent more money on lobbyists in the second quarter than ever before, another sign that the two technology giants are concerned about getting attention in Washington. Google increased its spending on lobbyists to $2.06 million in the second quarter, up from $1.48 million in the first quarter.

Facebook’s spending on lobbying, while far less, increased to $320,000 in the second quarter, up from $230,000 in the first. It has spent $550,000 so far this year, according to an analysis by the Center for Responsive Politics.

Google opened its Washington office in 2006, the same year it started its own PAC. In that year, the company’s committee distributed $36,984, according to OpenSecrets.Org, which tracks campaign spending. By 2010, the PAC had distributed $345,000, all for Congressional campaigns.

Google’s office in Washington has grown as well. It has 11 registered lobbyists as well as engineers, sales representatives and employees who work with enterprise clients, according to a company spokeswoman.

Last week, Eric Schmidt, the chairman of Google’s board and the former chief executive, testified before a subcommittee of the Senate Judiciary Committee on the issue of competition.

Mr. Schmidt told the committee that Google is in “the area” of a monopoly, but is engaged in fierce competition with other companies.

Like Google, Facebook is facing increasing questions from lawmakers about the effect of its practices on its customers.

In May of 2010, the founder of Facebook, Mark Zuckerberg, wrote an opinion article in The Washington Post to respond to charges that the company had acted cavalierly with user data and had made it too complicated for people to protect their privacy.

“The biggest message we have heard recently is that people want easier control over their information,” Mr. Zuckerberg wrote. “Simply put, many of you thought our controls were too complex.”

Report: Yahoo to Be Broken Up, Sold for Parts?

 instead of hiring a firm to start looking for a new CEO, various Yahoo-related parties are quietly reaching out to companies to see if there's interest in buying parts of the company. Mentioning two anonymous inside sources, Blodget says that "Yahoo is asking what Yahoo assets the companies might be interested in and what they might be willing to pay for them."

If you've been wondering who's going to replace Carol Bartz as CEO of Yahoo after she was fired by phone at the beginning of the month, the answer may be "no one."

In fact, following on from rumors that Yahoo was "open to selling itself to the right bidder," now there are rumors that the company may be broken down and sold off in pieces to whoever is interested.

Companies mentioned as potential buyers include Microsoft, News Corp., Disney and online advertising giant Glam Media. This comes in addition, of course, to rumors of an AOL/Yahoo merger, as well as three private equity firms expressing interest in purchasing the company.

Yahoo may be buying time until someone comes along with a good idea about what to do with the company and its assets. But whether or not such lack of leadership is going to make the company look less valuable in the short-term to possible buyers is open to question.

With 'Movie Pass', Dish Ensures Blockbuster's Irrelevance

Oh, Dish Network. You were so close to turning Blockbuster from a overlooked clump of hair in the drain to a new and exciting brand. But with Blockbuster Movie Pass, you blew it.

For weeks, rumors swirled that Blockbuster was going to launch a streaming video service to rival Netflix, and the timing couldn't have been better. Netflix had just announced that it was breaking off its DVD rental service into a subsidiary called Qwikster, with a separate website, separate billing, separate queues and separate reviews. This news came shortly after Netflix raised prices by 60 percent for existing users who wanted streaming movies and mail-order DVD rentals. Consumers were livid and dumbfounded by Netflix's sudden changes.

(MORE: Netflix Backlash Rages On in Response to 'Qwikster')

At that point, Dish could have launched a service comparable to what Netflix used to be--streaming and DVDs in a single package for $10 per month, or maybe even a little more--and it would've been a hit. People were ready to make the switch.

But instead of attacking Netflix directly, Dish introduced a Blockbuster-branded add-on for its satellite TV customers. For $10 per month, they get streaming movies on their computers, plus one DVD rental at a time from Blockbuster by mail or in stores. There's no smartphone or tablet access (not yet, at least), and no streaming to game consoles or other set-top boxes.

Whoop-de-doo.

Dish says that it'll eventually get around to offering a streaming service that isn't tied to a satellite TV subscription, but the company will probably screw that up as well. After all, if a streaming service looks attractive enough, it's a potential threat to Dish's existing business model. Meanwhile, the opportunity to feed off Netflix's squandered good will is slipping away.

I'm reminded of when Blockbuster tried to "rescue" angry Netflix customers in July with a special offer of $10 per month for one DVD rental at a time and $15 per month for two DVD rentals. Sentiment aside, that deal was in many cases more expensive than Netflix and didn't include any options for streaming video. This week, Dish claimed to offer a "stream come true" for ex-Netflix subscribers, but in reality is selling nothing of the sort.

This could have been the start of a great comeback for Blockbuster. Instead, it's another missed opportunity.

Samsung Reportedly Trying to Block iPhone 5 Sales in Korea

Samsung's banking on home-field advantage to get the iPhone 5 banned in Korea, even as Apple gains the upper hand in smaller patent battles overseas.

Samsung executives told Korea Times that it will seek a sales ban against the iPhone 5 once it launches in Korea. "For as long as Apple does not drop mobile telecommunications functions, it would be impossible for it to sell its i-branded products without using our patents," a Samsung executive, who did not wish to be named, told the paper. "We will stick to a strong stance against Apple during the lingering legal fights."

The bad blood began in April, when Apple sued Samsung for "blatant copying" of Apple patents and trademarks, particularly in Samsung's Galaxy line of phones and tablets. Samsung counter-sued, which is generally what major tech companies do when they get sued by another major tech company for patent infringement.

Usually, these things just end with licensing agreements that make lawyers rich while costing one company more money than the other, but the case of Apple vs. Samsung has been a bit nastier. Germany has banned sales of Samsung's Galaxy Tab 10.1, and forced the company to remove its Galaxy Tab 7.7 from the IFA trade show in Berlin. Australia temporarily banned the same tablet while a lawsuit from Apple is pending. Samsung has appealed the case in Germany and counter-sued in Australia. The two companies' patent fight currently spans 12 courts across nine countries.

It's unclear why Samsung isn't talking about blocking the iPhone 5 in other countries, but the company does have more patent attacks in mind. "If Samsung wins in Germany that will give us a big breakthrough and so will other envisioned efforts against such products as the iPhone 5," an executive said.

Part of me hopes that Samsung succeeds in scoring an injunction or two, if only so both companies can hurry up and settle. When products get pulled from store shelves, consumers lose.

Twitter Shakes Things Up Again: Fred Wilson, Bijan Sabet Leaving Board

Twitter is reshaping itself yet again, this time at a corporate level: Investors Fred Wilson and Bijan Sabet are leaving the company’s board at the end of the month. Sources say the company won’t fill their seats.

[UPDATE: Twitter confirmed our post in a statement:

"Bijan Sabet and Fred Wilson both played important and greatly appreciated roles in our success. Both saw what Twitter could become before most anyone else. We look forward to their continued input as both investors in the company and passionate users of the product."]

Wilson, a high-profile principal at Union Square Ventures, was one of Twitter’s earliest backers, and for a long period helped to steer the company’s direction. Sabet’s Spark Capital was also an early investor.

Both funds have sold some of their Twitter holdings via secondary market sales. But people familiar with the companies say both continue to hold a majority of their stake in Twitter, now valued at $8.4 billion.

If there’s a backstory here, it will be hard to tease out. People familiar with all three companies tell me there’s no bad blood behind the move. The one thing that’s easy to understand — for now, at least — is that Twitter’s board is a little less unwieldy.

It has been swelling over time, and last year got even bigger when Flipboard’s Mike McCue, former DoubleClick CEO David Rosenblatt and Silicon Valley advisor-to-many Peter Currie all joined. Other board members include Benchmark’s Peter Fenton and CEO Dick Costolo.

And, for a relatively young company, Twitter’s corporate history is full of twists and turns. The most recent and prominent ones were Costolo’s ascension from COO to CEO a year ago, when he replaced co-founder Evan Williams; and co-founder Jack Dorsey’s return to the company last spring to head its product efforts, after being pushed out in 2008.

For Android Users, a Cure for iTunes Withdrawal

A few weeks ago, I pulled off a major feat for a fortysomething relic in the company of a 15-year-old. I taught him something cool about his phone.

After my friend’s son, Davis, described the advantages of his Droid X, he came to its “one big downside.”

“I can’t get my iTunes music on it,” he said.

“I’ve got an app for you,” I said. “DoubleTwist.”

He looked it up on his phone. “Wow,” he said. “That’s it.”

DoubleTwist, which is free, gives people a way to easily sync their iTunes music library with their Android phones. As such, it’s one of the most important, yet often overlooked, pieces of software on the Android market.

DoubleTwist can be a bit confusing at times, and it has limited features when it comes to transferring photos between your phone and your computer. But for Android users who might otherwise feel forced to carry around aniPod for music, doubleTwist is a great option.

Getting started is a two-step process. Users must download the doubleTwist desktop application (fromdoubletwist.com) as well as the Android app. Next, you synchronize the media on your phone and computer.

Unfortunately, the initial syncing process isn’t quite as seamless as it could be. When you start the desktop application, it greets you not with a guide to getting started, but with a pitch urging you to buy the doubleTwist AirSync app. (More on that great little app later.) As an alternative, the desktop application says, you can “sync via USB for free.”

But this raises questions. Should you first open iTunes or just connect the phone to the computer? Should you download the Android app to your phone and perhaps open it before connecting?

DoubleTwist offers little help, if any. I searched the desktop application for tips, but no “quick start guide” or “getting started” sections existed, and nothing on the doubleTwist Web site’s user forums suggested which way to go.

I opened the doubleTwist app on the Droid2, and it prompted me to send an e-mail to my account — perhaps with start-up guidance — but no e-mail arrived.

So I grabbed a cable with a mini-USB plug on one end (for connecting to the phone’s power source) and a conventional USB plug on the other. With the doubleTwist app open on the phone, I connected the Droid2 to my Mac.

Success. The connection set off the opening of a new window on my desktop screen, prompting me to import music, videos and photos from my phone to the computer, or sync my iTunes music or videos to the phone.

Instead of trying to export my entire music library to the Droid2 or selected playlists among the many I have, though, doubleTwist asked if I wanted to choose among three playlists: “Most Played,” “Recently Added” and “Top Rated.”

A doubleTwist executive, Monique Farantzos, said the software was developed to detect all playlists on a user’s computer and allow people to pick and choose what they want to load onto their phone. She could not account for my experience, and said it was only the second time the company had heard that a user encountered trouble of this sort.

After some unsuccessful troubleshooting, I chose to download all three playlist options, and five minutes later, I had 75 songs on my phone that weren’t there before.

I also received an error message stating that 47 of the songs I’d been downloading to the phone were not available for transfer because the songs had not been upgraded to iTunes Plus.

For the uninitiated, iTunes Plus is an audio standard introduced on iTunes in 2007. Tracks are of higher quality and free from copy protections. As a result, you can burn music to a CD as often as you like, or play songs on multiple devices without restriction.

But if you bought songs on iTunes before 2007, as I did, you’ll need to upgrade them if you want to transfer them to an Android. (To upgrade, look for the iTunes Plus link on the right side of the iTunes homepage. The cost is 30 cents a song or $3 an album.

DoubleTwist’s AirSync app ($5 on Android) is well worth the price. All you need is a Wi-Fi connection, and instead of plugging in your phone each time you want to transfer new iTunes music from your desktop computer to the phone, you can merely open AirSync and start the sync.

That’s right: wireless syncing. IPhone users are still waiting for a way to do this with their full music collections. (Music purchased on iTunes can be wirelessly synced through Apple’s cloud service, but not music obtained elsewhere.)

Once Android users set up their iTunes on the phone, they will enjoy some other features that make it a more versatile music player than an iPhone. As the song plays, for instance, you can tap on the musician’s name and a box appears, offering options for buying more of the artist’s songs or watching related YouTube videos, for instance.

You can also set that song as your ringtone, or, if you’re feeling psychedelic, watch a dynamic graphical interpretation of the song. (There are 10 visual effects to choose from.)

It’s heady stuff for Android phone owners who have had to deal with iTunes withdrawal and iPhone envy. With one strategic download, the tables are turned.

The 10 Most Dangerous Celebrities on the Internet

Beware the allure of the common celebrity, ladies and gentlemen. The sheer volume of internet searches turns up some real web trickery: sites chock full of viruses, spyware and other nefarious unmentionables.

The fine folks at security firm McAfee have compiled a list of the 10 most dangerous celebrities on the internet, with searches for the top celebrity comprising an almost 10% chance of running into something awful.

Check out the list and tread lightly, my friends.

Why It's Important that Microsoft Succeeds with Windows 8 By Ben Bajarin on September 16, 2011

Ben Bajarin is the Director of Consumer Technology Analysis and Research at Creative Strategies, Inc, a technology industry analysis and market intelligence firm located in Silicon Valley.

Earlier in the week Microsoft gave the world a more in-depth preview of their next operating system at their developer conference called BUILD. Many in the industry had their eyes and ears closely tuned to what Microsoft would unveil at this year's conference. The reason for this is because many know that Microsoft needs a breakthrough OS release.

(MORE: Windows 8: The PC Goes Post-PC)

The technology industry is moving incredibly fast. Microsoft historically does not move that fast, and if Microsoft doesn't have a hit with its next major OS release, my concern is that the market could pass them by.

As I look at what is being shown and the emphasis that Microsoft is putting on developers to re-write or write new apps for the Metro UI aspect of Windows, it makes me think that Microsoft is trying to start over with Windows 8.

In fact, this is exactly what I think they need to do. Start over fresh and re-build Windows from the ground up for the next 10+ years. And with the cloud being where most of the apps will reside, there is no better time than the present to take this radical step. I also believe they should consider not even calling it Windows 8 but something entirely new.

Microsoft needs a ground-breaking release. Something consumers can get excited about and, more importantly, something their hardware partners can grab onto and exploit for everyone's benefit. The success of Windows 8 is not only important for Microsoft but it is also important for the entire tech industry. Microsoft has a large number of partners in the tech eco-sphere; many companies depend on Microsoft to take them into the future.

This is especially true with the original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) who make personal computers. Everyone outside of Apple who makes personal computers ships Windows. They literally have no other reasonable option.

Many of these partners also make things like tablets, and some also make smartphones. To date they have leaned on Google's Android to provide the OS layer of their hardware.

I know that many of these same companies would love for Microsoft to have a hit with Windows 8 so they can also support them with a tablet and possibly a smartphone as well. I hear over and over again that device makers would love to have an alternative to Android.

RIM BlackBerry PlayBook and Smartphone Sales Tank

So much for RIM's brief PlayBook sales "surge" to "4.9% of the tablet market": The company's losing market share "much faster than expected to rivals Apple and Google," reports Reuters this morning.

RIM took another bath in red ink yesterday, when it revealed its quarterly profits had plummeted, sending the company's shares tumbling in after hours trading. The disappointing quarterly earnings report was RIM's third in a row, too, bottoming out the company's already downgraded yearlong outlook.

(MORE: IDC: iPad 2, PlayBook Gobbled Android Market Share Last Quarter)

Analysts paint a bleak picture for RIM, telling Reuters the company's hemorrhaging has spread internationally (referencing slowdown in the U.K.), accusing RIM of being in "blatant denial" and claiming that RIM's already very pessimistic full year outlook isn't pessimistic enough.

"The co-CEOs do not recognize the failure of the Playbook and continue to sell its merits in terms of security," said Sanders Bernstein analyst Pierre Feragu, pointing to a heart-stopping decline in PlayBook shipments—from half a million to just 200,000 in a single quarter.

Then there's National Bank Financial, one of whose analyst's calls the PlayBook "nothing short of a disaster."

"Our view is the company is garnering lower profitability on its service revenue, which is the monthly infrastructure fee charged to carriers based on the number of active BlackBerry subscribers," said National Bank analysts, downgrading RIM's stock from "sector perform" to a stinging "underperform."

But don't tell that to RIM co-CEO's Mike Lazaridis and Jim Balsillie. In a conference call after RIM's earnings results were released, Balsillie spoke of a PlayBook software update dubbed "PlayBook 2.0," and Lazaridis claimed the company would be back in the black by the third quarter and going forward.

How Much of the Internet Is Porn? Less than You'd Expect

The Internet really isn't as pornography-filled as you might think. In fact, according to one expert, only 42,337 of the one million most-trafficked websites online are offering sex-related content, which translates into somewhere around 4% of sites on the Internet.

That surprising figure—am I the only person who expected it to be much higher?—comes from neuroscientist Ogi Ogas who, along with his partner Sai Gaddam, collected porn statistics as research for his book A Billion Wicked Thoughts. He went on to say that 13% of all web searches between July 2009 and July 2010 were for "erotic content," down from an estimated 40-50% ten years earlier. So has the Internet just become more family-friendly as it grows older?

Ogas isn't convinced; he thinks that what may have happened instead, is that hard fact has replaced fearmongering and rumor:

There have been a bunch of false and ultimately mythic stats floating around for years that say half the Internet is porn or one third of the Internet is porn, though this has never been remotely true... Web filtering companies used to always release competing figures on the number of porn sites they blocked, but these numbers were almost certainly boosted to get sensationalist headlines  and to seem competitive with other filtering companies that filtered “less” adult sites. For example, N2H2 claimed there were 260 million porn sites–haha, one for every American citizen!  Conservative groups are always coming up with porn figures that are crazy high, too, especially with regard to children's exposure to porn.

Perhaps the most surprising piece of information Ogas shares about Internet porn, however, may be that people still pay for pornography online. In fact, that may be more true depending on where you live. According to Ogas, "I've heard from different adult operators that the Republican states have higher per-capita subscription rates. Meaning they're more likely to pay money—they don't know about free porn viewing."

I eagerly look forward to the next Republican Presidential Nominee Debate featuring candidates boasting about the jobs they've created in the online porn industry.

TechCrunch Founder Leaving AOL-Owned Blog

NEW YORK (AP) -- Michael Arrington, founder of the popular technology blog TechCrunch, is leaving the blog and its owner, AOL, to work on the venture capital fund he recently started.

Arrington, 41, sold TechCrunch to AOL nearly a year ago. When he and AOL CEO Tim Armstrong announced the acquisition last September, Arrington had said he expected to stay with the company for at least three years.

In a statement, AOL spokeswoman Maureen Sullivan said the "TechCrunch acquisition has been a success for AOL and for our shareholders, and we are very excited about its future."

"Michael is a world-class entrepreneur and we look forward to supporting his new endeavor through our investment in his venture fund," she said.

Arrington started his venture capital firm with an initial $20 million. Its investors include AOL as well as venture capital firms such as Greylock partners, Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers and Sequoia Capital.

Erick Schonfeld, who joined TechCrunch in 2007, has been named its editor.

Addictive Blooms: 'Fractal' Review

Like any watershed work of art, 1984's Tetris sired lots of offspring, some more bastardly than others. And it's been fascinating to see the way the falling block puzzle genre has transformed that since the Russian-born game made the Game Boy a must-have device. Time limits, RPG elements, multiple colors and a plethora of shapes have made titles like Bejeweled and Puzzle Quest blockbuster triumphs in their own right.

It's too soon to say if Fractal–the new iPad game created by indie development studio Cipher Prime–will join those ultra-successful block puzzlers but it does bring some interesting elements that make it feel fresher than any similar game in recent memory.

The first change is in the shape that players are tasked to make. You'll need to nudge seven hexagonal tiles into a bloom–a shape that sort of looks like a flower–to clear them off the board. It's not the easy horizontal lines of Tetris or friendly squares of Lumines, and you'll need to train your eye to spot the opportunities. The bigger tweak that Fractal introduces is a limited pool of resources. You only get a certain number of moves to fulfill each level's quota and this creates a radical shift in how you play.

Other games in this genre keep delivering an endless supply of chances to break out of gridlock and you're strung along waiting for the "right" piece or a magic tile that clears huge swaths of screen real estate. Fractal does away with that, adding an element of resource management that makes it feel leaner and meaner than other Tetris-style games.

Fractal does other things, too–like having two-color levels but only giving moves for one of those hues–that make it feel inventive and challenging. But some of its tricks make for a tough learning curve. I've played Fractal for more than a week in Campaign Mode and have consistently hit bottlenecks where I repeatedly failed to advance. I thought it was just me, until I handed it over to a friend who works in game development. It wasn't until I wandered over to the Puzzle mode that I realized that's where the real eye-training necessary to succeed happens. It's there so that you learn how to create shapes and spaces and how to ration pushes.

The odd thing about Fractal is how it manages to be addictive despite its frustrating opacity. In the Arcade Mode, it's easy to lose hours blowing down level after level because you have no push restriction and can earn more seconds to the one-minute time limit as you do better. The aforementioned Puzzle mode comes in three different flavors which tweak colors and resource settings according to how masterful you feel.

The bloom shape that you're supposed to make can be hard to see in the mosaic of colors on the screen. Not hard to see in a poorly designed way, but hard to see in a re-orienting your vision way. It's also hard to predict where pieces will float to when you make a bloom using the Explode or Electrify power-ups. You feel lucky but not strategic while playing. And, while that creates an interesting tension, you'll still need actual strategy to move forward and it's hard to formulate one with as much randomization as Fractal has baked into it.

Despite all of that, Cipher Prime's latest title does feel, well, fractal. You feel caught up in a loop of naturally occurring patterns that feel mysteriously organic. Devilishly designed to tweak the standard match-three, color-combo puzzle game template, Fractal walks the line between minimalism and mystery. You keep playing because of the sensation that some part of your brain will figure the mechanics out eventually. The fact that things only click occasionally may make it a little aggravating to play, but no less rewarding.

Windows 8 Revealed: Live from the Microsoft 'Build' Conference

We know a little bit about Windows 8 already, but only a little bit. Today at 12pm ET, Microsoft is holding a keynote at its BUILD conference in Anaheim—and by the time it's over, odds are that we'll have a pretty good idea of the operating system upgrade's overarching aims, feature highlights, and potential pitfalls.

We'll be in the audience and will liveblog the news as it happens. And we hope you'll join us right here.

PHOTOS: The First Windows 8 Tablet

More on Techland: 

Microsoft Rolls Out Windows 8: Nope, Definitely Not an iOS Clone

50 Windows 8 Screenshots, Hardware Photos and More

All Microsoft Build 2011 Coverage on Techland

Report: Speedier MacBook Pros on the Way

After rolling out new models in February, Apple is reportedly planning a marginal speed bump to its line of MacBook Pro notebooks before the end of the year.

That's according to a rumor from Apple Insider, which quotes not the standard "people familiar with the plans" but "people with proven insight into Apple's future product plans." In other words, take this news with a grain of salt, as with all rumors, but maybe make this particular salt grain a bit coarser and larger than normal. Perhaps a grain of sea salt if you've got one handy.

(MORE: New Lighter, Faster MacBook Pros Have Landed)

Anyhoo, here's the supposed skinny:

"Word of the new models comes just one week after Intel quietly refreshed its Sandy Bridge lineup of processors, adding four new Core i7 chips suited for adoption by the MacBook Pro in addition to slashing prices on some other chips, while phasing out a handful of others.

In particular, the chipmaker introduced new 2.4GHz, 2.5GHz and 2.7GHz quad-core Core i7 processors that could replace the 2.0GHz, 2.2GHz and 2.3GHz versions offered in the current 15- and 17-inch MacBook Pros, in addition to a 2.8GHz dual-core Core i7 that could serve as an upgrade path for the current 2.7GHz 13-inch MacBook Pro.

As for the entry-level 13-inch MacBook Pro, Intel continues to list a couple of Core i5 chips at speeds of 2.5GHz to 2.6GHz that Apple could elect to use to bump 2.3GHz Core i5 MacBook Pro for little to no cost increase."

As for timing, these mysterious product-plan-insight people say that the new models may be introduced as early as the end of the month. Hmmm, if only Apple had something else to announce soon. Something smaller and capable of making phone calls and whatnot. My, wouldn't that be convenient to announce everything at the same event sometime in the not-too-distant future?

Yoko Ono Is Following You (and 692,318 Other People) By Graeme McMillan on September 13, 2011

Yoko Ono is more interested in the lives of strangers than you are.

In fact, you might be able to make the argument that she's more interested in the lives of strangers than anyone else, as she's currently following 692,318 people on Twitter (as I type these words), more than any other account on the social media service. The next most friendly Twitterer? U.S. President Barack Obama.

(MORE: Twitter Reveals Active User Number, How Many Actually Say Something)

According to the All Twitter blog, Ono became Twitter's biggest follower at some point during the last six months, overtaking Obama—who apparently unfollowed more than 10,000 accounts—and taking the top spot of a list that includes Britney Spears, Whole Foods and the generically-named "UK Prime Minister" account.

The "Top 10 Twitter Accounts" sorted by "Following Other Accounts" list:

1. Yoko Ono (@YokoOno)
2. Barack Obama (@BarackObama)
3. HootSuite (@HootSuite)
4. Threadless (@threadless)
5. Whole Foods Market (@WholeFoods)
6. UK Prime Minister (@Number10gov)
7. Britney Spears (@britneyspears)
8. Lonely Planet (@lonelyplanet)
9. Zappos (@zappos)
10. Jean-Sébastien J. (@Wakooz_RSS)

I'm currently following less than 300 people. Either I'm doing Twitter all wrong, or if I want to play in the big league, I need to start taking "Follow Friday" more seriously.

And the Top Android App for Men Is...

According to a new survey by Nielsen, the most used app by men as indicated by metered device usage is—drumroll, please—Google Maps.

In taking a look at how many Android owners used an app in the past 30 days, the study found that 77.1% of males used Google Maps (disregarding the requisite Android Market app).

(MORE: Guess How Big Android's Lead Over Apple is Now?)

Gmail came in a close second (75.5%), with Google Search (72.4%), Facebook (66.9%), and YouTube (53.7%) rounding out the top five. Angry Birds was also on the list with a respectable 27.3%.

So why do men love Google Maps so much? Here's my guess: It's not that we (men) don't like asking for directions, it's that we just don't trust other breathing humans to point us in the right ones. As a guy with an awful (and I do mean awful) sense of direction, I'd much rather bury my head in my phone and poke through a bunch of menus than cave in and ask a stranger on the street to send me towards a place he or she's never heard of. I'm not speaking for all guys; it's just a hunch. Google's all-knowing omniscience > all. (Unless my girlfriend's there—she's impatient and likes talking to people.)

The most used app by women? Facebook sits at the number one spot with a commanding 81% lead, followed by Gmail (73.4%), Google Maps (71.9%), Google Search (71.3%) and YouTube (48.7%). Here are the full results:

Nielsen

So why do women love checking Facebook so much? (It's nearly an 8% jump between first place and second place.) I have no idea, but I'm guessing you do.