Count me among the skeptics who see Google’s Chrome OS announcement this week as, first and foremost, an effort to induce pain in its longtime rival Microsoft. And a pointless one at that.

Many people writing about Chrome OS have argued that there’s a sound business strategy behind it, that of leading to more Google ads for us to click on. While I agree in principle, I also think it’s easy to overstate the benefit to Google: Isn’t most of its revenue already coming from surfers using Windows-based PCs? And yes, many PCs take minutes to boot up and hours to configure – as Google cattily pointed out in arguing how computers (read: Windows) “need to get better” — but will we really use the time saved to click on sponsored links? I doubt it.

Microsoft’s operating software isn’t stealing ad revenue from Google, but if Chrome OS is broadly adopted — a big if for now — it would devastate Microsoft’s profits. Putting such a stake in Microsoft’s cold heart has been a dream inspiring Google’s founders since the company’s earliest days, long before it made much strategic sense.

There’s a similar logic here to Google’s attempt to forge a revenue-sharing partnership with Yahoo, which would have incrementally improved Google’s own revenue had antitrust concerns not derailed it. Google didn’t really need that deal. Rather it was looking to deprive Microsoft of a search asset it very badly wanted, because it believes that if Microsoft loses, it wins. Even if winning is just schadenfreude.

Google’s desire to beat Microsoft goes well beyond its other rivalries. Yahoo has long posed a more direct threat to Google’s ad revenue, but the competitive spirit was always a productive one, and the goal seemed to be a better experience for the web user. Twitter’s real-time search looms as a new threat, but Google has nothing but respect for the company. But Microsoft? The overriding goal is to cause pain.

And that may explain why Google is announcing an operating software that won’t actually be used by many consumers until well over a year from now. Forget that the web and open-source software will all have all evolved significantly by the fall of 2010; the news of Chrome OS has dominated the tech news cycle just as buzz for Windows 7 was building. Google did something similar when Microsoft unveiled Bing, stealing the PR thunder with its own announcement of Google Wave.

Silicon Valley companies have long fostered an animosity toward Microsoft because of its long history of bullying and squashing innovative startups. But that’s ancient history now, as antitrust probes have weakened Microsoft and the cloud has made its core products more peripheral. Beating up on Microsoft used to be a matter of survival in Silicon Valley. Now it’s just an exercise in spite.

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At the Nokia World 2008 conference, Nokia CEO Olli-Pekka Kallasvuo waxed eloquent about the N97 handset, its highest-end phone and described it as “world’s most advanced mobile computer” He went on to say, “We are, in fact, transforming the Internet. Putting in your hands the power to be more in tune with the world around you.” The device has finally launched, and those bold claims by Olli-Pekkas aside, the N97 is barely making a wave in this summer of the superphone.

I have had this device for nearly three weeks and my response to the device every time I use it: meh! Since it is the US version of the device, it works fine with the AT&T’s 3G Network (if you can call it that), but the device is underwhelming. After having used the iPhone, Google G2 (or T-Mobile MyTouch) and Palm Pre — the N97, its outstanding hardware features not withstanding feels outdated. It shouldn’t: it has every known software a regular modern mobile phone user wants – Twitter, Facebook, Flickr, Maps. And yet, it feels from a different era. Like a baseball player, long retired trying to make a comeback. (Related post: NewTeeVee Reviews N97 with focus on its video recording capabilities and is unimpressed.)

If you have been a regular reader, you know I have had a soft spot for Nokia devices. Actually I still do. The Nokia N73 and Nokia 8800 continue to be in my top five favorite phones of all time, and when opportunity arises, I still carry them around. Why? Because when it comes to quality, Nokia hardware is always top notch.

The N97, however doesn’t measure up. And that is very surprising for it had been one of the most anticipated devices, for most know the Nokia is world’s largest handset maker and with this device it could compete with new entrants such as Apple.Still I wanted to see what others thought, so earlier this morning I asked my twitter followers if they had any thoughts on N97 and how it was doing around the world. I was surprised by the downbeat responses. The one that was most telling was from @jonfingas who wrote back: “The N97 to me is Symbian’s inertia coming home to roost. Nokia’s dominance gave it a free ride for the past few years.”

So what do you think about Nokia N97?

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The biggest Android news by far this week actually dealt with the release of another platform from Google. The search giant announced Chrome OS, an operating system targeting netbooks and desktops. As part of the announcement, Google made it clear that Android will stay around and will be separate from the new OS, clearing up questions of whether Chrome would mean the end of the smartphone operating system. Android had been discussed as a platform for netbooks, but it seems that Chrome will get that role, at least next year.

And those who can’t wait to put a Google OS on the netbook can do so now, as the LiveAndroid project is alive and kicking. A new version was released this week that enables mouse control over the interface. Development is continuing on the project, which is a port of Android 1.5 onto the x86 platform for use on netbooks. A LiveCD distribution that can be burned onto a bootable CD lets it be used without impacting anything already installed on the netbook. Google is planning a USB stick version, allowing LiveAndroid to be booted from the stick, a concession to the fact that netbooks don’t usually have optical drives.

Also this week, T-Mobile opened up ordering for myTouch 3G, its next-generation Android phone. The myTouch 3G is $199.99 with a two-year contract, and deliveries are guaranteed for August 5. The myTouch is made by HTC and is sold under the Magic name outside the U.S. At its press event for the myTouch launch in New York, T-Mobile surprised folks by saying it “has no plans to bring the HTC Hero to market.” The HTC Hero is the upcoming Android phone with the innovative HTC Sense interface.

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While broadband service provider networks and utilities’ two-way smart grids belong together, the utilities are acting like a reluctant bride in an arranged marriage. Reasonable adults can see that combining the two is a good idea, but utilities and communications companies are oftentimes miles apart over standards, access and security. As a result, utilities are resisting any forced union that would involve hooking up their meters to customers’ broadband connections rather than a private network.

And that’s a shame, given how combining broadband and utility-provided smart meters could help consumers access web-based applications from Google’s PowerMeter to Microsoft’s Hohm, and to deliver innovative services such as tweets about home energy consumption. It’s also cheaper to use a home’s broadband than for a utility to build its own network. And data can be displayed to the customer a lot faster, too, because the speed of a normal broadband connection is generally faster than a utility’s private network. It can take as long as 24 hours to display the info back to the consumer on utility networks.

After reading about innovation in Germany where an electric company uses a customer’s broadband connection to help deliver intelligence about power use, I called my local utility, Austin Energy, which is considered an innovator in green energy. I wanted to find out how broadband and utility companies would deliver such services without using the same network, and why Austin Energy isn’t eager for any marriage of networks.

Andres Carvallo, chief information officer at Austin Energy, which in late summer will launch a citywide smart grid that will be able to deliver energy consumption data to subscribers every 50 minutes, says using a customer’s broadband access isn’t going to work. The Austin Energy grid uses a combination of 950 MHz wireless network and a fiber backbone. Part of the problem with using a subscriber’s broadband is that only about 80 percent of Austin Energy customers has broadband access or a broadband subscription, and the utility needs to reach everyone. The other issue is that the utility wants to control the network and information moving to and from the meter.

“The meter is the cash register for the utility,” said Carvallo, “so you have to have a reliable way of managing that cash register, and managing it everywhere — something we’re not able to do over a carrier’s broadband.”

But even if his utility isn’t eager to wed a consumer’s broadband subscription to the utility’s smart meter, he has hope that the two will be joined through other relationships. He sees a future in which a cable company or a security company might charge a consumer an extra $20 a month to monitor and manage home energy usage. Or one in which the utility will work with the Googles and Microsofts of the world to let consumers send their Austin Energy data to providers so they can manage it. Another Texas utility, TXU, provides its own tools for customers to use.

Carvallo thinks that by sharing the information flowing over its network with other providers, Austin Energy can strike a a balance between providing tools to help consumers who want to be engaged in managing their energy consumption, and not overwhelming those who could care less.

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Updated with comment from Pandora: Internet radio provider Pandora Media has raised $35 million in new funding, peHUB is reporting, just two days after the company celebrated the establishment of a royalty deal that ends years of negotiation with record labels and content owners. It’s not clear whether there are new investors involved or whether the funding comes from existing backers. Stakeholders in Pandora include Crosslink Capital, WaldenVC, Selby Venture Partners and Labrador Ventures.

As I wrote Wednesday, the resolution of the royalty issue could lead broadly to more investment in the Internet radio sector, as the expenses involved in running a Net broadcasting company become known quantities. Curiously, though, the peHUB report suggests that Pandora’s new funding was in place before the new royalty deal was reached, although it stands to reason that the company could have moved forward with its fundraising as the royalty agreement appeared imminent. Pandora CTO Tom Conrad didn’t mention a new round of funding in our conversation, but he did agree that having royalty structures in place could likely provoke more investment in Pandora’s competitors.

Primarily a free music service supported by advertising, Pandora said this week it would charge its heaviest users 99 cents each month if they exceed a cap of 40 hours of streaming music. The company also offers a separate premium service without ads that costs $36 a year and provides unlimited music from a desktop application.

I’ve contacted multiple sources at Pandora seeking comment, and will post an update if Pandora confirms the news. Update: Pandora CTO Tom Conrad confirmed to me that the company has indeed raised new money, with Greylock Partners leading the round as a first-time investor. He declined to discuss the size of the round or the company’s valuation. Existing stakeholders in Pandora, according to Conrad, include Crosslink Capital, Walden VC, Labrador Ventures, King Street Capital, Hearst Corp., DBL Investors and Selby Ventures.

As well, Greylock’s David Sze is taking a seat on Pandora’s board of directors. Sze also led Greylock’s investments in Facebook, LinkedIn and Digg, among others.

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Rick Marini, who co-founded Tickle.com, the quiz site that Monster.com acquired for $100 million in 2004 and later abandoned, is back with SuperFan. The site, which went live this week, is a social network where people can join the fan pages of various celebrities, bands, sports teams and other pop culture icons and compete to win control of their favorites.

SuperFan has two notable things going for it: the integration of game mechanics directly into the site, and a solid team behind the scenes. The company’s board includes proven names such as Rapture’s Sean Fanning, WonderHill’s James Currier and social gaming application guru Blake Commagere. Plus, all of SuperFan’s employees came from Tickle. As for the site itself, it incorporates game mechanics and quizzes –- Tickle’s stickiest feature -– to both monetize it and augment the amount of time people spend on it, something fan pages on Facebook and MySpace don’t do.

On SuperFan, people set up a profile and then select from a variety fan pages of celebrities, TV shows or other pop culture items to designate as their “Faves.” As people build up a collection of “Faves,” they can make quizzes, blog or play games related to them. It also offers people the chance to compete to become a “SuperFan.” They do so by buying “credits,” a virtual currency that can be bid to control a fan page and add content to it (it costs $1 to buy 1,000 credits.) For example, if you’re a big Britney Spears fan, you can bid credits against other fans to control the page dedicated to her. If you win and are crowned the “SuperFan,” you have the ability edit the page, deciding, for example, which profile picture of Britney it should run.

“Bringing gaming to social media has been more successful than any of us would have thought,” said Marini of the decision to employ such a model. “If you can get users really engaged (in a game), to the point that it’s competitive and ego-driven, people are willing to pay for that.” Indeed, social gaming companies such as Zynga and Playfish have enjoyed lucrative success on Facebook and MySpace.

It remains to be seen, however, whether SuperFan can draw people away from MySpace and Facebook to its site. But with MySpace floundering to get its act together, it’s a perfect time for a new competitor to enter the social network ring.

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Google is looking to make future versions of its Android operating system more social, said Andy Rubin, one of its creators and Google’s vice president of engineering (platforms), at an event in San Francisco earlier this morning. The event was held with T-Mobile USA to announce the launch of its newest Android-based phone, the MyTouch.

Frank Meehan, CEO of INQ Mobile, a speaker at our Mobilize 09 conference, must be really proud. He was the first to develop a device that specifically marries social networking to mobiles. And now everyone is doing it — including Google.
When I asked Rubin today why the self-described open platform doesn’t feature a native Facebook app, he said that social networking would be a key feature in future versions of Android. Google recently released Android’s latest version — code-named “Cupcake” — and will soon follow with Donut, Eclair and Flan. (What’s with the pastry fetish?)

Rubin said that Google doesn’t believe that applications should be silos and wants to help develop ones that deeply enmesh various mobile experiences — Internet, voice and location, for example. It’s taking a similar approach to social networking. “We are making a social push and we are looking at a more integrated experience,” he said. He declined to give any more details, including which future release of Android will carry these features, but I suspect we’ll be seeing them sooner than later.

The reasoning is pretty simple — that nature of communications is changing from just voice to many different modes. “Address book needs to be redefined,” Rubin said. Absolutely. As I wrote earlier, “Like email and instant messaging, Facebook (and soon Twitter) are what we use to stay in touch with our friends, colleagues and family.”

Anyway, to make a long story short (or is it too late for that?), someday there will be a Facebook app for Android that is made by the Palo Alto-based social network and it’s going to be as good as the one it has on the iPhone.

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Enough is enough. It’s time for Eric Schmidt to resign from Apple’s board. Sure, Apple and Google have a common enemy in Microsoft, so at one time it made sense for Google CEO Eric Schmidt to have a seat on Apple’s board of directors. But Apple and Google are competing on more and more fronts, Android and Chrome OS being among the most prominent examples.

The FTC apparently agrees, as it’s reportedly looking into whether the fact that Schmidt sits on Apple’s board is anticompetitive. When news of the inquiry was first reported back in May, Schmidt told reporters that he didn’t think “Google [saw] Apple as a primary competitor.” In Sun Valley yesterday, following the Chrome OS announcement, Schmidt said, “I’ll talk to the Apple people. At the moment, there’s no issue.” Google’s general counsel, meanwhile, has argued that there’s a “safe harbor” provision in the antitrust laws for companies that don’t have overlapping revenue.

Well, Google doesn’t really make any revenue outside of advertising, so there’s no risk of overlap there. But they are competing with the following:

• Android vs. iPhone
• Google Chrome OS vs. Mac OS X
• Chrome vs. Safari
• Gmail vs. MobileMe
• Picasa vs. iPhoto/MobileMe
• Google Calendar vs. iCal
• Google Docs vs. iWork.com

Schmidt began recusing himself from meetings at which the iPhone was being discussed after Google launched Android. Does that mean he’s going to start recusing himself from meetings at which the topic is Mac OS X? Or Apple’s Internet strategy? So what’s the point of him being a director? (C/Net has made these points in a post last week. Fake Steve Jobs does a great job of breaking things down in a classic and must read post.)

Come on, Apple. Being friendly with other companies is all well and good — but by having Schmidt on the company’s board, Apple is opening itself up to more antitrust inquires from an unfriendly Department of Justice and the FTC (even if Google and Apple employees overwhelmingly donated to the Obama campaign). Eric Schmidt, it’s time to go.

Or just merge the companies and get it over with. Goople has a nice ring to it, don’t you think?

Photo courtesy World Economic Forum

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The Times this week, in a story about a new line of “stylishly designed” electronics from Memorex targeted at women, asks if women are getting the gadgets they deserve. I would answer no. Women (and really everyone) deserve gadgets that are easy to use. And a hot pink, handbag-shaped iPod speaker dock from Memorex wouldn’t change the fact that I have to spend hours tweaking my home network or updating my iTunes software in order to set up a music playlist for a party.

According to Kasia van Hall at Memorex, which surveyed 1,500 women, the company concluded that:

“Women want to know about technology, but only just enough to get a taste of it. Of course not all women feel alienated in the electronics market. However, the majority, even if they are up to date with technology, simple [sic] don’t have time or energy to read long instructions and play with cables.”

I think that describes more than just women. Right now, those dominating the conversation about gadgets are a unique breed of people (mostly men but women, too) who like playing with them. So the fact that they have to mess with cables, install the latest version of Java or go out and buy an adapter to get something to work isn’t a dealbreaker; for them it’s kind of fun. They’re problem-solving. I feel the same way about building model train tracks, but ask me to spend more than five or 10 minutes setting up my phone and I want to rip out my hair. I think many consumers are like me (some probably have a slightly longer attention span).

To be clear, I carry a pink BlackBerry. My 2-year-old picked it out for me, saying I should “pick this one, because it’s pink.” In the end I went with it because I don’t really care what color my phone is, and it made my daughter really happy to see me take her advice (so far I’ve ignored her recommendations on sparkly shoes and cookies for dinner.) But electronics companies that are simply slapping a coat of bubblegum-colored paint on their products are targeting people who think at the level of my toddler. She’s smart, but I’d like to think that the majority of gadget-buying women out there are smarter.

Women don’t want candy-colored gear. Like most people, they want gear that works when you pull it out of the box and continues to work, without constant updates, even when you bring a new device into the ecosystem. That’s hard for consumer electronics companies to do, so I can see why they instead hope women, who tend to buy a lot of the home electronics gear, simply view the gadget world through rose-colored glasses. Now if you’ll excuse me, I need to go update my iTunes software again.

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Blogs, not email or search, drive video views (NewTeeVee)
How utilities can avoid “driving off a cliff” with home energy tools (Earth2Tech)
Take advantage of Twitter search operators (WebWorkerDaily)
A first look at Lenovo S10-2, S12 netbooks (jkOnTheRun)
Chrome OS, the wall of Windows apps, and Google’s stance toward Microsoft (OStatic)
Mac Quicken set for 2010 release (TheAppleBlog)

If your server crashes at 3 a.m., will you know about it? If you only get alerts via SMS or email, you might not wake up and your server could be down for hours. Husband-and-wife team Roger and Jessica Stewart wanted to fix that, so they started Alertyx, a server-monitoring service that will also call you and tell you what broke, right when it happens. They’ll even file a ticket with your service provider for you, so you can get back up and running faster.

The Stewarts say they designed Alertyx from the ground up to meet their needs, because nothing else out there was. The service provides both TCP and UDP monitoring, with free calling alerts in 22 countries. The free account limits alerts to one per 6-hour period, while the premium account offers calling alerts anywhere in the world, with unlimited phone, SMS and email notifications so you and your whole team will know when your server goes down. The premium account doesn’t have a premium price, though; alerts are just 25 cents each. The first 100 GigaOM readers who sign up for an account will get premium service free for a month: Enter coupon code “GIGAOM.”

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Updated: Using gestures to control your computer is one of those sci-fi dreams that most of us find fun to imagine, but don’t expect to ever incorporate into our everyday lives. But after reading about the AcceleGlove over on OStatic, a $500 glove that comes with a software development kit so it can be programmed to control applications, I started thinking about how I could use gesture to make my day a little more fun (and active). My vision requires the aforementioned glove and possibly a pretty sharp video camera, or a whole set of video cameras, to make gesture controls even more effective. Feel free to tell me how this will or won’t work in the comments, or let me know what else I would need.

1. I could add a physical component to answering emails by opening mails and deleting them with hand motions. Think of Mickey Mouse directing the chores in “The Sorcerer’s Apprentice.”
2. I could rig it so that I could read my RSS feed without touching the screen or keyboard while working out on my elliptical in the morning.
3. I could alternate between using my mouse and my fingers. My aching thumb and wrists would love this.
4. I could try to use it for gaming, although I think that I’d probably still suck at all racing and first-person shooters.

That’s MY wish list. In the last few years I’ve seen some companies pushing their own hopes for gesture in the form of actual products or published patents. Check them out and see what y’all can come up with for your own motion-controlled computing dreams.

1. Samsung’s gesture controlled phone is just an idea, but we all had fun with it.
2. Organic Motion’s software renders images from a few video cameras into a 3D avatar that can be used for more realistic virtual worlds.
3. Thanks to Intel’s researchers, there’s the option of playing full-body Tetris.
4. Apple’s iPod Nano allows a user to shake it in order to skip songs.
5. And who could forget the Nintendo Wii?
6. Update: Chris over at NewTeeVee pointed me to a Hitachi gesture-controlled TV.
7. He also sent over information about the Loop pointer by Hillcrest Labs, which uses gesture to control your PC.

image courtesy of IMDB/Disney

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Intel has “been working with Google” on the search giant’s planned Chrome OS, according to a report today in The Inquirer, which goes on to herald the end of the Wintel (Intel PCs running the Windows OS) hegemony. My feeling is that such a proclamation may be a little premature given that Chrome won’t be shipping on consumer netbooks for another year, but I’ve emailed Intel to ask about its involvement anyhow. The degree to which Intel is involved would indicate just how badly Microsoft is bungling this whole netbooks thing, despite the fact that most consumers really, really want their netbooks with Windows rather than Linux.

So what has Microsoft done to help such consumers embrace portable computing? It hasn’t ported the coming Windows 7 to ARM-based chips, which are expected to be in the next generation of netbooks (the really awesome Nvidia Tegra chips are tied to Windows CE — bleh). Microsoft’s pricing for Windows 7 will add at least $50 to the cost to a cheap netbook (Microsoft makes a less robust edition that sells for less). Meanwhile, plenty of other vendors are throwing netbook OSes into the ring while Microsoft dithers.

In other Chrome-related news, Eric Schmidt, Google’s CEO, apparently wasn’t keen on building an OS, according to the Financial Times. But now he gets it. “We benefit…when [consumers] put more of their life online,” he reportedly told a group of media types at a Sun Valley confab last night. “They do more searches, click on more ads. It’s a very straight-forward strategic initiative.” Google, it basically makes the gargantuan universe of the Internet relevant to you. All for the price of a few ads.

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Looks like good sense has prevailed. Media giant News Corp, despite persistent rumors to the contrary, is not planning to unleash a competitor to Amazon’s Kindle, CEO Rupert Murdoch said in an interview with the company’s Fox Business. He is leaving the device business to those who know it best — device makers. When asked by Stuart Varney, a Fox anchor, if the company was going to get into the hardware business with an electronic reader, Murdoch said:

I don’t think that’s likely. We’re looking and talking to a lot of laboratories and big companies around the world like Sony, Fujitsu, Samsung. We’re all working on wireless readers for books or for newspapers or for magazines.

I think they’re a year or two away, being marketed in a mass way, high-quality ones. And we will be absolutely neutral. We’re very happy to have our products distributed over any device provided it’s only going to subscribers who are paying for it.

In May, The Daily Beast reported that News Corp had put together a team that was looking to come up with a way to charge for online content, including building hardware to consume it.

The source tells me that this team is “personally run and overseen” by Murdoch, 78. Murdoch has enlisted the aid of a longtime trusted lieutenant, Les Hinton, now CEO of Dow Jones, which News Corp. took over in 2007, and Murdoch’s youngest son and heir-apparent, James, 36, the London-based CEO of News Corp.’s Asian and European operations since late 2007.

Good luck with that, Mr. Murdoch. The decision to not build a device is a smart one; the company can benefit from working with as many partners as it wants to encourage the use of its content. Now what are the odds that other newspaper companies will suddenly rethink their plans for Kindle competitors?

Photo of Rupert Murdoch courtesy of World Economic Forum via Flickr.

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I just saw that Amazon has launched a new, special store — dubbed Amazon Wireless — that sells wireless service plans and devices from U.S. carriers AT&T and Verizon Wireless. Sprint and T-Mobile USA are coming to the store soon. To be fair, Amazon is playing catch-up with San Francisco-based specialty e-tailer, LetsTalk, which offers more options when it comes to plans, carriers and devices. It also has a 10-year head start.

Nevertheless, it is safe to predict that thanks to its dominating presence on the Internet, Amazon will be a formidable competitor to LetsTalk. The clean and easy-to-use design, description of devices and quality of reviews alone ensures the future of this offering. I wouldn’t be surprised if a few years from now it becomes a king-maker in this high-volume business. I am frankly surprised that it took Amazon until now to do this, considering that it’s been offering mobile plans and special deals for so long. Wireless retailers get a nice chunk of change from the carriers for the deals they bring to the party.

The big question is if this is a new strategy, that of micro-stores focused on specialist markets. It had launched Endless, a specialty shoe store back in 2007. And Amazon bought Dpreview.com, a digital camera review site, in May 2007. How about a digital photography-focused store, or a cooking-related store. What do you guys think?

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