Fellow Toshiba NB205 netbook owner Hector Gomez pinged me last night with some interesting info on a refreshed Toshiba making its way through the FCC. There’s no indication of the processor in the FCC testing documents, but at this point, it’s all but certain that the new Intel Atom N450 will power it. I can confirm that the device will have integrated 3G, or at least an option for wireless broadband. Speaking of options, owners of the new netbook will be able to use either EVDO or HSPA for the broadband service. Hector told me it appears that Toshiba is using a Qualcomm Gobi chip for communication, which supports both types of network technologies. It took me some time to find it, but a Nov. 18 filing confirms it (PDF):
“Please be advised that Qualcomm Incorporated authorizes Toshiba Corp. and Compliance Certification Services to utilize compliance data from Part 22/24 RF conducted test report of the Qualcomm model No: Gobi 2000, FCC ID: J9CGOBI2000 to demonstrate compliance for the Toshiba Netbook Computer Model No: NB300/ NB305, FCC ID: CJ6UPLL3APC.”
Although I’m not sold on the business model, this news is a good indicator that we’ll see carriers in the U.S. that will subsidize the Toshiba NB300/305 netbook. Although it’s difficult to tell from the above diagram, Hector thinks that the battery housing on the new netbook appears a bit larger than on our current devices. That could mean a battery that protrudes a little less, but we’ll have to wait and see. I’m also wondering how long such a refreshed netbook will run on a single charge since the new Atom chipset uses 20 percent less power. Note that the displays use more energy than chipsets, so you can’t expect a 20 percent jump in overall battery life. But with early reviews showing solid gains in run-time, I’m hoping that a new Toshiba netbook will run for nearly 10 hours — my current one lasts for around eight with the older Atom. Thanks Hector — when are you placing your order? 
Do you somehow still doubt that the App Store is a huge money-making enterprise, at least for a lucky few? Then consider the news that Tapulous, the development studio behind the wildly popular Tap Tap Revenge rhythm game franchise, rakes in a cool million every month. That’s not EA or Gameloft or someone similar that came in with a reputation. That’s an iPhone-specific development company.
If you’re not familiar with Tap Tap Revenge (you must not own an iPhone, or read our site very carefully), then you probably don’t know that it’s essentially a clone of games like Dance Dance Revolution and Rock Band, redesigned specifically for the iPhone’s unique interface. It’s fun, and incredibly addictive, which probably has something to do with its impressive degree of success.
Tap Tap Revenge has reportedly been installed more than 20 million times (although that isn’t necessarily unique installs) and people have played more than 600 million rounds. Rough estimates put the total install base of the game at one-third of all iPhones currently operating. Considering the iPhone’s success, that represents a hefty payday indeed.
The source of revenue stemming from the Tap Tap Revenge series is varied. Most of the apps themselves cost at least 99 cents, though Tap Tap Revenge 2.6 is free, and artist-specific special editions cost more. But the real money is made from ads in the games, and from a cut of the in-app purchases available in the latest version, which allow iPhone users to buy and download playable, often themed tracks from their favorite artists.
Obviously, Tapulous is the exception, not the rule. The vast majority of iPhone-only devs don’t make anywhere near that kind of scratch, but if nothing else, this simple rhythm game proves the money’s out there to be made.
Image Credit: Microsoft
Microsoft Office 2010 hasn’t arrived just yet, but you can end the year with a little head start of experience and knowledge about the productivity suite. The free beta of Office 2010 has been available for some time, but I just now caught word at GHacks of a free e-book to help folks understand what’s coming in the new version. “First Look: Microsoft Office 2010” is in Adobe PDF format and just a click away from downloading. Microsoft is hosting the e-book on its Windows Live SkyDrive service right here.
The 14-chapter book runs 183 pages, so as the title implies, this is a first look — not an all-encompassing guide to Office 2010. But it’s filled with useful tidbits on old and new features alike. Here’s a table of contents summary:
Envision the Possibilities
- Welcome to Office 2010
- Express Yourself Effectively and Efficiently
- Collaborate in the Office and Around the World
Hit the Ground Running
- Create and Share Compelling Documents with Word 2010
- Create Smart Data Insights with Excel 2010
- Manage Rich Communications with Outlook 2010
- Produce Dynamic Presentations with PowerPoint 2010
- Organize, Store, and Share Ideas with OneNote 2010
- Collaborate Effectively with SharePoint Workspace 2010
- Create Effective Marketing Materials with Publisher 2010
- Make Sense of Your Data with Access 2010
Next Steps with Office 2010
- Putting It All Together
- Security in Office 2010
- Training Made Easy
Although I’ve long since migrated to Google Docs, I gave the book a download and quick summary scan. It’s definitely worth the download and read for anyone who uses Microsoft Office.
Threadsy has recently updated and added some new features that expands its already ambitious goal of becoming your universal social inbox. In addition to aggregating all of your regular webmail accounts (Gmail, Yahoo and Hotmail), it has now added support for Apple MobileMe (me.com/mac.com email addresses). Throw in your Facebook inbox and wall messages along with your direct messages and replies from Twitter and you’ve created quite a versatile communication center.
Besides the new features, Threadsy has resolved many bugs and vastly improved its load time. Considering everything that it’s trying to do at once, it’s understandable why its launch sequence seemed sluggish, especially compared with regular one-mailbox email services. In my testing, I set up several different types of email and social-networking accounts. In a matter of seconds, I was looking at Twitter and Facebook messages and emails from my Yahoo, Hotmail and Gmail accounts, and could quickly jump from the everything-but-the-kitchen-sink view of all my messages to each service’s view.
I like how Threadsy pays attention to the little details with its UI. For example, if you don’t look closely then you’ll miss another useful new feature which can be a big time-saver. When you open an email message, the action icons are now always conveniently visible at the top.
Many users still don’t know about Threadsy’s support for Meebo’s Meebo Bar, which was announced in November. This opens up your Threadsy to IM, because you can now add all of your accounts from GTalk, AIM, Yahoo Chat, MSN Chat, Facebook Chat, MySpace IM and many more.
MySpace M.I.A?
Speaking of MySpace, I do have one minor complaint. I don’t understand why Threadsy doesn’t support MySpace. True, its popularity has dropped in recent times, replaced by Facebook and Twitter, but believe it or not there are still tons of folks using MySpace. As a matter of fact, I have many friends that only use MySpace so there’s no way to communicate with them from inside Threadsy, which defeats its purpose of being a unified social inbox. Threadsy reps told me that they have just received the development documentation for the new MySpace API that was released last week. Although no time frame was given, this clearly means there are plans to support MySpace in the near future, which is great news.
Threadsy is still in private beta, but if you’d like to give it a test drive yourself there are invites available to the first 500 people to click this link.
Tried Threadsy? Let us know what you think. Is it still information overload or is this the future of online communication?
gwabbit is a handy application that automatically identifies and parses contact information from your emails to help ease the process of creating new entries in your contact list. I’ve written about the Outlook version as well as the paid BlackBerry edition in the past and was impressed by the offering.
The team at gwabbit recently released a free version of the BlackBerry app. It offers the same functionality as the paid version, except that it automatically notifies the folks whose addresses you’ve grabbed via email. I’m not usually a huge fan of this sort of thing, but it could be useful to let people know you’re trying to keep in touch with them. Personally, I think I would spend the $9.99 annually and spring for the paid version. The time savings make it a no-brainer, as does the knowledge that you’re not bugging your friends, clients and contacts.
You can download gwabbit (both free and paid editions) at the BlackBerry App World.
Would gwabbit Free help you keep your contacts in order?
Location-based social networking services like Foursquare and Gowalla may eat up a lot of techie mindshare, but they still have very few users — roughly 150,000 and 50,000, respectively. However, by virtue of product design and social norms, users are discouraged from cheating when it comes to the services’ social gaming elements, so the value of their information is high.
On the other hand, an iPhone app called MyTown, which also features a location-based check-in system game, acquired 250,000 users within just two weeks of launching earlier this month. The app already gets 650,000 daily check-ins from nearly 1 million locations. The difference? MyTown is much more of a game. In the span of 20 minutes or so, I “checked in” at tens of locations in my neighborhood, acquired points and virtual cash and bonuses, “bought” (à la Monopoly) nearby restaurants and collected rent on them, and got up to level six of 20 — all from the comfort of my couch. The game is really, really easy. In fact, Booyah, the company that makes the app, says 15 percent of users hit level 20 within 24 hours of first using MyTown.
Booyah CEO Keith Lee said all this activity came as a surprise. His team was just trying to make the game fun at launch, so they were lenient about the check-in radius and offered tons of prizes and rewards. The next version of the game, he said, will ratchet down on fidelity to reward users for checking in within 50 meters of an actual location and will include local commerce and advertising. It will also have a ton more content and levels so that people don’t get bored. “We’d rather build a super-fun game, then build on friend lists to make it more viral, as opposed to focusing on social utility but not making it fun.”
Lee and his team came from Blizzard Entertainment, so they really do know how to design games. When he talks about improving MyTown, it’s on a higher level. For example: “We can decouple the check-in compulsion loop to another loop, but we don’t want to break it.”
But 250,000 MyTown users isn’t going to be enough for Palo Alto, Calif.-based Booyah (though it’s more successful than the company’s first iPhone game, Booyah Society, which tried to validate users’ real-life achievements and had 150,000 downloads). Booyah has raised $9.5 million from Kleiner Perkins, including a Series B round closed in September.
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