Welcome to the Geek Choice Blog

The report on RIM’s last quarter actually beat out estimates from many analysts but that would only be true if you don’t count the $485 million hit the company took on unsold playbooks.

It’s been a trying year for RIM. There have been security snafus and subpar product launches and an overwhelming sense of stagnation. All of which is compounded by the company’s blind hubris, be it last year’s ridiculous BlackBerry Torch expectations or today’s claim by co-CEO Mike Lazardis that every day he “[hears] stories… about people saying the BlackBerry Bold is the best communication device in the world today.” If those are the stories you’re hearing, maybe you’re spending too much time in the fiction aisle.

But despite all of the miscues, no matter how many blinders management has on, RIM has still managed to be profitable. Its subscription base hit 75 million this year. It pulls in a billion in cloud revenue on the regular. You’d be tempted to say that RIM was succeeding in spite of itself—if it weren’t for its greatest failure. The PlayBook: it’s RIM’s Gilligan, albatross, and giant self-destruct button all rolled into one. It could be the death of them.

Siri is the iPhone 4S’s most-desired feature, and many non-4S users have been clamoring for hackers to make the voice assistant available on older iOS devices. While Siri ports have been demoed to the public before, it’s been made clear that public distribution is not possible at this time due to legal issues.

Apple has made a Siri port legally possible with today’s iOS 5.0.1 revision by offering wide-open access to system files that were previously encrypted.
MuscleNerd, a prominent figure in the jailbreaking and hacking community, recently tweeted that the iOS 5.0.1 update from today features decrypted ramdisks, making it possible to extract the necessary files for a Siri port without infringing on Apple’s copyright. MuscleNerd said, “it’s the first public 4S ipsw where the main filesystem keys are obtainable (due to non-encrypted ramdisks).”

There have been multiple methods proposed for running Siri on non-4S hardware in recent weeks, but all of them are either illegal or impractical. To run Siri properly, one would need access to an iPhone 4S unique identifier and that key would need to be switched out every 24 hours to avoid detection. If thousands of devices start calling on Siri from one 4S identifier, Apple will be able to easily spot the activity and kill the port.

As Microsoft’s Xbox group moves toward launching a successor to the Xbox 360, it will do so without the leadership of Don Coyner, who has guided that strategy since the console’s inception more than a decade ago.

Multiple sources who work for Microsoft say Coyner is no longer leading the design and experience group for Xbox. One of those sources said Coyner was replaced by Emma Williams, who helped guide the just-launched redesign of the Xbox Live interface.

Microsoft declined to confirm or deny the organization changes. “We don’t comment on personnel issues,” a spokesman said.
Coyner is a well-regarded executive at Microsoft, who joined the Xbox team as the company began working on the video game console in 1999. Coyner started as director of marketing for the group. As development of the Xbox 360 gained steam, his role expanded to include user experience. According to journalist Dean Takahashi’s book, “The Xbox 360 Uncloaked,” Coyner championed creating a unified design language for Microsoft’s second stab at console gaming.

“He wanted to whole user experience to be consistent, like an Apple product, where everything from the screen to the package looked like it was designed by just one person,” Takahashi, now lead writer for GamesBeat at VentureBeat, wrote.

That unified design won plaudits for the console at its 2005 debut and helped propel it too much greater success than its predecessor. Sales of the device have continued to grow month-over-month, defying conventional wisdom that console sales should taper after five years or so. Xbox 360 will finish this year as the best-selling console in the United States.

It has been rumored that Android is making a Siri competitor. According Android and Me, Google has spent much of the year putting in work on a newly revamped Voice Actions software, which they have codenamed Majel. You could consider this their answer to Apple’s Siri and will go far beyond what the current crop of Android Voice Actions can accomplish. The limits of specific commands (navigate to, listen to, etc.) will soon be gone and the times of speaking in natural language may be upon us.

Want to know about the codename? The word Majel comes from the name of the woman who acted as the voice of the Federation Computer on Star Trek for years. And it just so happens that Matias Duarte (the ICS architect) mentioned Star Trek back in October around the time that Android 4.0 was unveiled. He was quoted as saying that their approach to voice actions “is more like Star Trek, right, starship Enterprise; every piece of computing surface, everything is voice-aware. It’s not that there’s a personality, it doesn’t have a name, it’s just Computer.” Fitting.

It looks like a good amount of the Microsoft Windows Phone devices suffer from a denial of service attack which allows an attacker to disable the messaging functionality on the device. The flaw is exploited very simply, all it takes is one SMS to a Windows Phone user. It is reported that Windows Phone 7.5 devices will actually reboot and the messaging hub will not open. The attack does not seem device specific and could be an issue with the way the Windows Phone Messaging hub actually handles messages. This bug can also happen if a user sends a Facebook chat message or even a Windows Live message. There are even reports it affects more than just messaging. If a user has pinned a friend as a live tile on their device and the friend posts a particular message on Facebook then the live tile will update and causes the device to lock up. Thankfully there’s a workaround for the live tile issue, at initial boot up you have a small amount of time to get past the lock screen and into the home screen to remove the pinned live tile before it flips over and locks the device. So anyone with a Windows Phone be careful.

So far the Kindle Fire has been reported to have a bunch of problems. Here are a few of the problems that people have with it, there is no external volume control. The off switch is easy to hit by accident. Web pages take a long time to load. There is no privacy on the device; a spouse or child who picks it up will instantly know everything you have been doing. The touch screen is frequently hesitant and sometimes downright balky. I must agree with all of it. I have had a Fire for a few days now and right now I am questioning if it was the right move. Granted I don’t the type of money for an iPad but with my case and accidental protection I spent close to $300. Although Amazon is promising an update that may fix most of the problems, obviously the design flaws of no volume button can’t be fixed over the air. This update should be in two weeks and I will like to see what it has to offer. Maybe then I might be somewhat satisfied with my purchase, but as of right now, not so much.

Motorola’s pair of Droid Xyboard tablets has finally gone up for order on Verizon’s site this morning. The 8.2-inch version is now available with 16GB of storage for $430, or 32GB for $530 (on a two-year contract). The 10.1-incher, meanwhile, is available in three flavors: 16GB, 32GB, and 64GB, for on-contract prices of $530, $630 and $730, respectively. All five Honeycomb models come with LTE functionality, and all five are available now.

A new survey shows that for some reason people who don’t own an Apple iPhone would love to own an Apple iPad. It’s logical to think people who own a certain type of smartphone – one running Google‘s Android or Research In Motion‘s BlackBerry operating system, for example – would prefer to buy tablets based on the same software or related software. Matching the operating system should yield a more consistent user experience and ensure that at least some apps can be shared between devices. A new survey from market researcher Maritz Research, however, indicates a preference for iPads even among people that own Android, BlackBerry and Microsoft Windows mobile phones. The survey, which was conducted online in mid-to-late November, polled about 2,500 people across the country. Respondents were asked which of 14 tablets (from 11 different manufacturers) they would choose if they were to buy a tablet. For the most part, they pointed to the iPad regardless of the smartphone operating system they currently used.

This was particularly true of BlackBerry users. More than half (53%) of survey respondents who identified themselves as BlackBerry users said they would like an iPad if they were to buy a tablet. A much smaller percentage of BlackBerry owners opted for the other two most popular choices in the study: Amazon’s Kindle Fire (12%) or Samsung’s Galaxy Tab (11%).

Android users showed a similar liking for iPads. Respondents who identified as Android phone users favored the iPad over the Kindle Fire and Galaxy Tab with 41% indicating preference for the iPad, 15% for the Kindle Fire and 19% for the Galaxy Tab. (Both the Kindle Fire and Galaxy Tab run on Android though the Fire’s software has been highly customized by Amazon.)

Windows Mobile/Phone users exhibited comparable characteristics with 40% selecting preference for the iPad, 16% for the Kindle Fire and 12% for the Galaxy Tab. The study did include one Windows-powered tablet, HP’s Slate 500, but few Windows Mobile/Phone users said they would opt for it.

It looks like the telecom giant will be ending it’s partnerships with Direct TV and also stopping it’s build out of FiOS TV and internet for the next few years. This is happening because Verizon is looking to make partnerships with cable providers to cross-market phone, video, Internet and cellular services. This was all announced by the CEO Lowell McAdam. McAdam insisted that Verizon will rigorously promote its FiOS video and Internet service in areas that compete with cable, the company said it doesn’t have plans to expand the expensive fiber network beyond what’s already been announced and scheduled for buildout over the next couple years. So it will be really interesting to see what will happen.

Well an App anyways. Yesterday Xbox Live released an official Xbox LIVE app for the iOS owners. This app actually lets you stay connected to the Xbox LIVE community while you are away from the console. Some of the great features you will be able to use are:

Read and Send messages to friends.

Manage your friends list, invite new friends.

Read and Edit your full Xbox LIVE profile.

Change your avatar.

View and compare your achievements with friends.

This should be a lot of fun for iOS owners who have an Xbox, now where is my Android app?