In 2008, Apple CEO Steve Jobs made headlines when he called Blu-ray "a bag of hurt."

At the time, Jobs said: "Blu-ray is just a bag of hurt. It's great to watch the movies, but the licensing of the tech is so complex, we're waiting till things settle down and Blu-ray takes off in the marketplace."

Two years later, Blu-ray has become more mainstream, but Steve Jobs seems to have the same distaste for the HD format.

A MacRumors reader sent an email to Jobs asking about the future of Blu-ray on Mac computers.

Reads his response: "Blu-ray is looking more and more like one of the high end audio formats that appeared as the successor to the CD - like it will be beaten by Internet downloadable formats."

The reader then responded saying that while he agreed downloadable formats would win out in the end, short term and medium term benefits were significant, including using Blu-ray for backups and for HD video.

Jobs final response: "The downloadable movie business is rapidly moving to free (Hulu) or rentals (iTunes) so storing purchased movies or TV shows is not an issue. think you may be wrong - we may see a fast broad move to streamed free and rental content at sufficient quality (at least 720p) to win almost everyone over."

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Hulu announced yesterday the launch of Hulu Plus, a premium version of the popular streaming site that will cost $10 per month.

Buyers of the subscription get expanded content, and the ability to play the shows on their HDTVs, Blu-ray players, Xbox 360 (with Gold subscription), PS3 and iPad and iPhone.

Hulu Plus gives users season passes for most current shows, which is a massive improvement from only being able to watch the trailing five episodes of a given show. You will also be able to watch back seasons of the shows.

Today, Technologizer is reporting that Hulu Plus will only be available to PS3 users who have a PlayStation Plus subscription, which costs $50 per year, or $18 for 90 days.

On top of that, Hulu Plus is still ad-supported, meaning if you want the service on your PS3 (or Xbox 360) you will need to pay for two premium subscriptions and still see ads.

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Amazon has announced it will purchase the popular site Woot.com, the site that became famous for selling just one item at a time, usually at a large discount from its normal prices.

Retailers use sites like Woot to either dump excess inventory or introduce new customers to their brand of products.

Consumers, on the other hand, get the thrill of racing other would-be buyers for a sharply discounted item.

Woot launched in 2004 and now has 2.75 million registered users. The site sells all types of items, but mostly electronics. For example, today's Woot item is the Apple iPod Nano 8GB, 5th Generation , selling for $99 USD, a big discount from even Amazon, which has the same item listed at $125.

Amazon was Woot's only outside investor, when they bought a piece in 2006.

The NYTimes explains that Woot is also a wholesale distributor, which distributes to Target, Amazon, and others.

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Starbucks says its free Wi-Fi program will go live tomorrow in U.S. and Canadian stores, allowing users to access free Internet from over 7500 shops in the nations.

There are about 6750 U.S. locations and 750 in Canada.

Until now, free Wi-Fi at Starbucks was limited to two hours, and you had to be part of the company's Rewards program. The new, unlimited offering is simple one-click, removing the need for a username and password.

"Our customers were asking for a simplified Wi-Fi offering, and free Wi-Fi has been a top request on MyStarbucksIdea.com. We're excited to turn this feedback into action and believe our customers will be delighted with the enhanced experience they'll find in Starbucks stores," adds Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz.

In the fall, Starbucks will introduce the Starbucks Digital Network, a partnership with Yahoo! that will give consumers "free, unrestricted access to a collection of paid sites and services, exclusive content and previews, free downloads and local community news."

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In 2007, Dell was sued over selling faulty computers to not only individual consumers, but also to corporations and big Universities who needed Dell's OptiPlex business units.

New documents, finally unsealed in the long-standing case, show that Dell employees knew that the company was selling faulty units, and decided to instead play off the issues, allowing the corporations and schools use the computers, at risk to their business.

In a twist of irony, the firm defending Dell in the suit had 1000 Dell computers run into trouble, and the PC manufacturer refused to fix them.

Internal documents also show that Dell shipped almost 12 million computers from May 2003 to July 2005, knowing full well they were at risk of failing.

In 2005, the company took a $300 million charge to fix and replace faulty computers, and will pay up to $100 million this year to settle with the SEC for shady accounting practices.

The problems affecting the millions of computers had to do with bad capacitors found on motherboards being built by Taiwanese suppliers. After three years, the capacitors had a 97 percent chance of popping and leaking fluid.

Making matters worse, explains The NYTimes was that Dell, when they did choose to fix faulty units, would replace the motherboards with other motherboards with bad capacitors, delaying the inevitable.

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Microsoft has confirmed today that they are pulling the plug on the Kin One and Kin Two smartphones, after sales fell well below expectations.

Additionally, the Kin phones will not make it to Europe as promised, and the entire Kin team has been moved over to the company's Windows Phone 7 division.

Says Microsoft: "We have made the decision to focus exclusively on Windows Phone 7 and we will not ship KIN in Europe this fall as planned. Additionally, we are integrating our KIN team with the Windows Phone 7 team, incorporating valuable ideas and technologies from KIN into future Windows Phone releases. We will continue to work with Verizon in the U.S. to sell current KIN phones."

Pulling the plug is a glaring admission of failure from the Microsoft team, which released the phone just two months ago, after almost two years of development.

The Kin series failed for many reasons, but the main factor was price. For low-end smartphones aimed at teenagers, Microsoft and Verizon still forced consumers to buy a $70 mandatory voice+data+texting plan. For the same price, you could have a top-end Android device, or head to AT&T for an iPhone.

Sources from within Microsoft say Verizon sold over 1000 devices since launch, but under 10,000, with many believing that number is around 2500.

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Apple may not want to admit it, but the Android OS has already surpassed their iOS in smartphone market share in the United States (by some accounts), and is catching up internationally.

AdMob, the mobile analytics and tracking firm that was recently purchased by Google, has released their latest mobile metrics report, which is a "monthly snapshot of the smartphone industry based on data generated by ad requests within its network of 23,000 mobile websites and mobile applications."

The report shows that Android is rapidly rising internationally, in terms of share, thanks to a plethora of new smartphones using the popular mobile operating system.

As of May 2010, iOS leads the way at 40 percent international market share, with Android closing in at 26 percent. Symbian, by Nokia is in third at 24 percent. Blackberry OS, despite being popular in the United States, is in fourth at 6 percent. Windows Mobile, once dominant, fell to a measly 2 percent. Palm's WebOS and "other" make up the rest of the numbers.

In North America, Oceania and Western Europe, the iOS is dominant, while Nokia dominates Eastern Europe, Asia and almost the entire Africam continent.

Overall, traffic from Android devices has grown 29 percent month-over-month for every month since May 2009.

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Since the introduction of their new iPhone 4, Apple has been getting complaints of reception problems related to users bridging a gap in the steel band around the phone's edge during normal use. Despite acknowledging that the issue exists, Apple has consistently defended their design and characterized the problem as a user issue.

The problem occurs when the device is cupped in the user's left hand in such a way that a gap in the steel band around the edge is bridged. Among other things, the band serves as a pair of antennas which are separated by this gap.

Holding the iPhone 4 in this way has been found to degrade or completely block phone and data service.





A number of people have reported getting email responses from Steve Jobs on the issue telling them to hold the phone differently. A recent statement from the company mirrored that sentiment.

"Gripping any phone will result in some attenuation of its antenna performance with certain places being worse than others depending on the placement of the antennas. This is a fact of life for every wireless phone. If you ever experience this on your Phone 4, avoid gripping it in the lower left corner in a way that covers both sides of the black strip in the metal band, or simply use one of many available cases."

As the Apple statement indicates, the use of a case resolves the problem by covering both antennas.

A document reportedly leaked from Apple to Boy Genius Report seems to indicate the company intends to continue making customers responsible for solving the problem.

1. Keep all of the positioning statements in the BN handy – your tone when delivering this information is important.
   
   
   1. The iPhone 4's wireless performance is the best we have ever shipped. Our testing shows that iPhone 4's overall antenna performance is better than iPhone 3GS.
   2. Gripping almost any mobile phone in certain places will reduce its reception. This is true of the iPhone 4, the iPhone 3GS, and many other phones we have tested. It is a fact of life in the wireless world.
   3. If you are experiencing this on your iPhone 3GS, avoid covering the bottom-right side with your hand.
   4. If you are experiencing this on your iPhone 4, avoid covering the black strip in the lower-left corner of the metal band.
   5. The use of a case or Bumper that is made out of rubber or plastic may improve wireless performance by keeping your hand from directly covering these areas.


2. Do not perform warranty service. Use the positioning above for any customer questions or concerns.


3. Don't forget YOU STILL NEED to probe and troubleshoot. If a customer calls about their reception while the phone is sitting on a table (not being held) it is not the metal band.


4. ONLY escalate if the issue exists when the phone is not held AND you cannot resolve it.


5. We ARE NOT appeasing customers with free bumpers – DON'T promise a free bumper to customers.

Apple is certainly correct that antenna issues aren't unique to the iPhone 4. But the fact it occurs when the device is being used in a way their engineers should have anticipated and tested for still makes this a design flaw.

There are a variety of ways Apple could be handling this. Denying all responsibility for the problem seems like choosing the worst one in the long term to avoid spending money on a slight design modification or a relatively inexpensive fix for existing units in the form of free or discounted bumper covers.

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