We're 4 out of 6 months before the end of the 1st half of this year, and we STILL don't know of the price of the product or an actual release date.

Not much news has surfaced since I first mentioned my interest in the Palm Pre back on February 20th.  Here we are 4 months later with 2 months to go, and we STILL don’t have a price or a set release date on it.

This fact alone is not only frustrating, but completely ridiculous.  What is the hold up?  When is it coming out?  Do you guys know of an expected price yet?  Both sides (Palm & Sprint) are playing dumb with “We don’t have a price or know when it’s coming out.” This is starting to piss off a lot of people (like me) who have been following this phone since its announcement at CES.  Apple at least had the courtesy of providing a release date when they announced their iPhone.

We expected Palm or Sprint to make an announcement at CTIA with some worthy news about the Pre.  All that was announced at CTIA were the plans you need to use the phone.  Basically an Everything Data phone or a Simply Everything plan.

There have been several rumor dates floating around.  A while back people predicted that the phone would be out my March 1st since Sprint traditionally releases their phones on a Sunday.  Then April 15th (tax day) for whatever reason, then April 30th.  PreCentral.net thinks the release date will be May 17th, but now are having second thoughts about that.  As days wane on towards June 30th, I’m thinking we’re going to see it released the last week of June.

I can’t help but think at this point that maybe they’re laughing or mocking us?  I’ve been reading some of Palm’s posts on their official blog and on their official Twitter profile and some of their responses to the community have been kinda dumb.

Just recently Palm showed the Pre to Molly McAleer, some chick who does her own show called The Molls Show.  I’m guess that Palm showed her the phone to get her to advertise it?  Despite Molly looking kinda cute, ultimately the video she did was pointless… I’ll do you a favor and save you 2 minutes of your life: She reveals to the world in an emo sort of way that she “secretly” has a crush on the Pre.

The only thing that’s worthy of  news since February 20th is that the Palm Pre will support emulation for the old Palm O/S applications.  If I were to make an educated guess, it’s to at least let those that still use the old Palm devices the ability to use them while uring the developers of those old applications to port their software over to Web O/S.

As I’m writing this, PreCentral.net has confirmed with their sources that UPS is shipping back the finalized phones from China to the U.S.  Apparently these phones have the final ROM flash loaded on so they’re ready to be sold at launch.  The question is WHEN?  And how much?

It’s hard to say if Sprint and Palm are trying to keep the hype with the Pre going.  Sprint launched an ad campaign on the phone, ads have been found on Facebook, the homepage of CNN.com and other popular websites, but the ads don’t reveal anything about the price or a release date.  How can you advertise something without including a price?   Just showing pictures of a phone with stupid slogans like “The new Palm Pre Only from Sprint.  And only on the Now Network” doesn’t tell any of us anything we’d like to know.

Update: PreCentral.net officially killed of May 17th, they’re guessing the release date will be June 7th.

With the recent outbreak of this Swine Flu it’d be a good idea to see a visual of where the Swine Flu is spreading. So far at least 20 people in Mexico have died from the H1N1 Swine Flu.  In the U.S. there are confirmed cases of people that are infected with it, but nobody has yet died from it.

Here’s a marker legend for the map below:

• Pink markers are suspect
• Purple markers are confirmed
• Those markers with a dot represent the individual(s) are still alive
• Yellow markers are negative

This map automatically updates to reflect upon any new cases of the Swine Flu.  Keep in mind – the pink markers are suspect, meaning the flu these people have is still being determined.  The purple markers without dots are those that have actually died from the H1N1 Swine Flu… THOSE markers are cause for concern.

Update: It looks like the death toll in Mexico has now surpassed 150 deaths.

Brian Bowman, the Director of Public Affairs for the city of Wilson, N.C., which runs the service, is fighting to keep state government from killing the competition in the area.

Lets say you lived in a city where they directly offered you a service where you could purchase 10/10Mbps internet, 81 TV channel and phone service.  Then you’d have a competitor like Time Warner offer a similar package but with fewer channels (not including Cartoon Network, Disney, The Science Channel, ESPNU, ESPN, or ESPN classic) and a lower upload speed for your internet.

The city offers their package (called Greenlight) for $99/month, and Time Warner offers theirs for $137.95/month.

Obviously any rational person is going to flock towards the $99 package the city offers.  Well Time Warner instead of trying to release a more competitive package against the city, has decided to lobby to get the state government to pass legislation to try and destroy its competition.  The sad thing is Time Warner may just get their wish.

North Carolina’s State Senate proposed Senate bill 1004 & House Bill 1252 that would prevent local services from getting funding under the broadband portion of the national stimulus bill, but attempt to cripple or ban the local service all together.

In the city of Wilson, Brian Bowman is the Director of Public Affairs.  He recently launched a blog and said:

I have a 10Mbps up/down connection at my house.  Can’t get half that from the cable company.  I buy it directly from the city of Wilson.  After less then a year of residential service, almost 3,000 Wilson citizens are subscribing to Wilson’s fiber optic network.  Local businesses in town can get speeds up to 1Gbps.

If the cable & phone companies really want a level playing field, they’d open their books like like we do in the spirit of open meetings and open records law.  They don’t want a level playing field, they just want to be the only team on the field.

Bottom line – these companies are using your state lawmakers to protect monopolies.  It was wrong in 2007 when a similar bill died in the house and it’s wrong today.

According to a local newspaper, the City of Wilson initially approached Time Warner with a request for faster internet service for their residents, and the company refused, as it would cut into their profits.  So the city took it upon themselves to build their own network and sell the service to its citizens at a fraction of the cost.

I have to wonder how lawmakers can legally get away with trying to pass bills like these when they clearly seem anti-competitive.  The only way to prevent this type of thing from happening is to recall these corrupt people as clearly they don’t hold any interest for their people.  The two senators sponsoring Senate bill 1004 are David W. Hoyle & Debbie A. Clary.  Their contact information can be found by simply clicking on their names.  For the house version of this bill, there are far too many people sponsoring this bill, just click on the House Bill 1252 link and look at the sponsors.

Seriously this type crap makes me sick…  If you’re a resident of North Carolina, contact your House & Senate members and voice your disapproval.

Sources:

• Daily Tech – Time Warner, Embarq Fight to Outlaw 100 Mbps Community Broadband in Wilson, NC
• Save NC Broadband.com
• Indyweek – June 2008: Mighty, mighty broadband

Looks like The Pirate Bay will remain online. For now...

So as you’ve probably read everywhere on the internet about The Pirate Bay crew, all four of the defendants were found guilty…  Yet The Pirate Bay remains online.

Why you ask?  Because there was no injunction in that trial specifically said “Shut down the website.”  The trial was directed at the TPB (The Pirate Bay) crew finding them guilty of the copyright infringement − not the website.

If the MPAA & IFPI want the website shut down, they’ll need to file another trial for exactly that.  John Kennedy, head of the IFPI said that’s what they plan to do.

Lets be realistic here: if you manage to successfully shut down The Pirate Bay, what makes you think that’s going to stop piracy?  All it’s going to cause people to retaliate against them by creating another 100 websites like the Pirate Bay.  Essentially what the MPAA & IFPI are doing is putting their hands into a bees hive, shaking it, and not realizing that they’re going to create a swarm.

It’s exactly the same issue that the U.S. Government has been dealing with when it comes to the “War on Drugs.” Pot may be technically illegal, but you can’t stop everybody from using it.  You really can’t win this battle.

I’m personally keeping a close eye on this story as new details unfold.  Stay tuned.

A visit to Disneyland – April 18th, 2009. Went with friends: Pio, John, Jobe, Kristin & Miranda.  Pio’s company rented out a bunch of rooms at the Disney Grand Hotel, so we took advantage of that and spent our Saturday at Disneyland and California Disney.

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