To rebut a wall street journal article that declared Verizon Wireless and Microsoft were on an iPhone rival, Microsoft spokesman John Starkweather said “Microsoft is not building a Zune-specific phone. We’re deepening our relationships with our hardware partners”, as reported by PC Mag.

The last sentence of that money quote does make sense. After all, if you’ve spent years licensing—and earning—off manufacturers who want to use your mobile platform, you don’t kill that kind of Golden Goose. This remains true even if your mobile platform has steadily lost market share and presence to Apple’s offerings, and even a yet-to-be-released smartphone from Palm.

What makes more sense are rumors of Zune functionality integrated with Windows Mobile 7, due for release in 2010. Which of course, is another way of saying “we’ll improve Windows Mobile’s media player.” If ever Microsoft was just pulling our leg, and a Microsoft-phone is actually under development, I don’t think it will be this bad:

A great concept design by Ji Woong, the Zip-It Earphones is basically the bastard child of earphones and a zipper. A zipper is built into the cord, presumably from the audio jack up to a inch or so from the earphone buds themselves.

The volume controls are—fittingly enough—are integrated into the zip pull. The concept calls for twisting the pull to adjust the volume, and pressing a button to prevent accidental volume changes.

I’m all for the Zip-It going on the market, but I think the zipper shouldn’t go all the way up to the person’s ears. The zipper would rub on the wearer’s cheeks, and cause some significant discomfort.

If a company ever decides to turn this concept into reality, how much would you pay for it? Would it also make sense to make a headphone version?

(images courtesy of Ji Woong, source)

There are plans in the Philippines to offer a PHP 100 million reward (a bit over $2 million) to anyone who can find holes in the automated election system for the country’s 2010 elections. This Monday, Philippine Senator Alan Peter Cayetano will file a resolution seeking to allocate that much money from the automation project’s $230 million budget.

As Technograph reports:

Cayetano, at a press conference Friday, said that if any IT expert can establish that the system to be used in the 2010 polls is not secure from fraud and tampering, “Comelec should cancel the contract, save the P11 billion and sue for damages the contractor in the event of such successful hacking.”

He said he would rather revert to the manual counting of votes if the computerized system would lead to wholesale cheating.

The senator does not seem to realize that even the most well-designed system will have flaws that someone will eventually discover—especially if they have such a massive incentive to do so.

Why would the senator insist on canceling the system’s implementation if (actually when) an exploit is found? Wouldn’t it make more sense to collect the data on any holes discovered, plug them, and thus maximize the $2 million reward’s impact?

It seems Mr. Cayetano’s paranoia about automating elections in the Philippines is clouding his judgment. What do you think, dear readers?

Crank up your volume a bit, so you can hear what’s going on here:

So what do you think of the above? Personally, I don’t think the scanner actually played the Imperial March from Star Wars. My “proof”? Watch the beginning of the sequence again: the scanner moves consistently, yet the “note” changes to accommodate the melody.

Although I do think some modding was done to make the scanner assembly follow a routine. And the planning and hard work that made that necessary—even though ultimately useless—deserves some credit.

(PS: If you’re wondering what the Imperial March is, let me first pity you, then ask you to watch Star Wars)

According to Gearlog, at least two companies are working on earphones designed for the iPod shuffle. Like the earphones that come with the music player, these planned products feature playback controls right on the earphone cords. Read more

If nothing else, the Shuffle’s inline control interface definitely isn’t the same as that used in iPhones and other iPods. The Griffin SmartTalk inline iPod headphone controls pictured here don’t work, for example, in the 3rd-gen Shuffle. They have the same triple-ringed version of the headphone plug and nearly identical functionality, but do nothing.

-BBG\

The silence from the other side is deafening: Could it be that, for the first time, those Apple-can’t-do-wrong fanboys have nothing to say?

To be fair, no one can fault Apple for making their new iPod shuffle as small as a clip (1.8″ x 0.7″ x 0.3″), nor can they call out the company for providing 4GB of storage. And while the VoiceOver feature, which reads out song or playlist names, uses imperfect synthesized text, it’s still a great way to make up for a missing display. Read more

I still don’t get it. The iPhone’s industrial design may be awesome, its marketing is second-to-none, and not even Nokia’s 5800 threatens Apple’s intuitive touch interface.

So why are lots of people going gaga over a phone that can’t tether to a laptop out of the box, and requires an ingeniously-designed accessory to gain a stand-alone microphone? The $13 Mini Capsule Microphone plugs into the phone’s 3.5mm audio jack. At least Apple never tried to make its earphone jacks proprietary.

(Image from source)

Well duh. That makes sense, like Steve Ballmer banning Google and iPods for his kids. Then again, Gates and Ballmer could be missing out on crucial market research opportunities.

The internet is currently buzzing over what David Perry, the chief creative officer of Acclaim, surmised in a conversation with kotaku.com yesterday: “I spoke to a developer who is working on it right now. I know this developer is already working on it, so that means they have a prototype. That would sound like a fall release to me.”

Other juicy tidbits: the PSP 2 will be entirely digital, meaning all content will be stored on-board. If true, then the UMD format is now scheduled for obsolescence. Just rumors for now, so stay tuned for updates. Maybe it’s time to start budgeting for a new console purchase.

Thanks Gearlog!