Digital Daily » keynote

Bartz Bails on CES Keynote

John Paczkowski — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 16:14:40 +0000

“Yahoo! is a top global brand whose vision is to be the center of people’s online lives, and Carol Bartz is leading the development of Yahoo!’s approach to delivering personally relevant, meaningful Internet experiences. We welcome Carol Bartz to the 2010 CES keynote stage to talk about what’s next for Yahoo! and the industry.”

– Consumer Electronics Association president and CEO Gary Shapiro, Oct. 13, 2009

Now this is odd: Yahoo (YHOO) CEO Carol Bartz has canceled plans to deliver a keynote at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas in January. This not a month after the Consumer Electronics Association boasted of her participation in a press release.

The reason for the cancellation: An alleged scheduling conflict. Said CEA spokesperson Jason Oxman: “Carol Bartz informed us late last week that her schedule has changed and she will no longer be able to deliver the speech at the 2010 International CES that Yahoo and CES had announced some weeks ago.”

It’s worth noting that prior to Oxman’s remark, which was posted to the comments of Tech Trader Daily, no official announcement of Bartz’s withdrawal was made. Indeed, the CEA press release issued yesterday announcing the addition of Qualcomm (QCOM) CEO Paul Jacobs to the CES keynote roster made no mention of Bartz at all. Moreover, her bio appears to have simply disappeared from the CES site.

As I said, odd.

Bartz is Keynoting CES? Are They Putting Her on Five-Second Delay?

John Paczkowski — Tue, 13 Oct 2009 18:09:18 +0000

Carol Bartz, Yahoo’s all caps CEO has been tapped to deliver a keynote address at the 2010 Consumer Electronics Show.

What’s Yahoo (YHOO) got to tout at a consumer electronics showcase? Could be an update to Connected TV, the same Internet-to-television platform the company debuted at CES last year. Or it could be something else entirely.

Either way it’s likely to be an interesting session. As Bartz’s F-bomb-dropping performance at D7 demonstrated (see video below), she’s nothing if not colorful.

[ See post to watch video ]

Sept. 9 Apple Event to be Tablet-Free

John Paczkowski — Tue, 18 Aug 2009 18:00:30 +0000

[ See post to watch video ]

Apple Event Scheduled for Wednesday Sept. 9–Music, NO Tablet

John Paczkowski — Mon, 17 Aug 2009 23:01:26 +0000

It has happened every September since 2005, and in a few short weeks it will happen once again. Apple (AAPL) is indeed planning a keynote event for the week of Sept. 7, as reported by my colleague, Peter Kafka. And according to sources close to the company, the date is Wednesday, Sept. 9.

The event will be held in San Francisco–most likely at Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, where it has occurred in years past–and is expected to showcase upgrades to the iPod line and an update to iTunes that may involve some sort of social element. Our sources insist it will not involve any discussion whatsoever of the tablet Apple is reportedly developing.

Too bad. It’s looking more and more like we’ll have to wait until 2010 for that.

No word yet on who’s to preside over the event. There’s been speculation that it will mark the first public appearance by CEO Steve Jobs since returning from medical leave earlier this year. Our sources have no information on whether or not that will prove true.

PREVIOUSLY:

European Commission Overclocks Intel Antitrust Fine

John Paczkowski — Wed, 13 May 2009 20:29:20 +0000

[ See post to watch video ]

Pre-Diculous, Redux

John Paczkowski — Thu, 02 Apr 2009 07:00:10 +0000

Palm’s Michael Abbott delivered more than just the keyonote at Web 2.0 Expo. But not that much more. Absent from his remarks Wednesday evening was any news about the price of Palm’s forthcoming Pre handset or a hard-and-fast release date–two bits of information the industry has been pining for since the device was first announced in January. What Abbott offered up instead was a rehash of what it’s been telling us about the Pre for months now, along with three bits of minor news.

The first: Palm, as was rumored, is expanding its early-access program for Mojo, the WebOS SDK. The second: The company is introducing a new set of integrated cloud services, called Mojo Messaging Service, for developers. From the official announcement:

“The Mojo Messaging Service is an elegant, standards-based way to exchange information over the Internet. When new information is available, it is ‘published’ to the cloud and all interested parties who are subscribers are notified that new information is available. This will allow developers to push live content to their applications or services. The Mojo Messaging Service initially will have a limited feature set and service level that will evolve over time.”

And the third, as was also rumored: Developer MotionApps has written an emulator called Classic for the Pre that will allow users to run more than 30,000 PalmOS apps on the device. Also from the official announcement:

“Palm also announced that MotionApps (www.motionapps.com) is creating an emulator application that will allow most Palm OS applications to run on webOS devices. The application, called ‘Classic,’ will be available for purchase when the Palm Pre phone becomes available from Sprint in the first half of 2009, and gives users peace of mind as they transition to Palm’s new webOS.

Since Palm OS applications running in Classic won’t be able to leverage core webOS functionality, Palm is working with partners to ensure that popular Palm OS applications are made available on the webOS platform and are optimized to take advantage of everything it has to offer. In the meantime, the MotionApps Classic application will allow customers who have invested in the Palm OS platform to use Palm OS applications they’ve grown to love and depend upon on their new webOS devices.”

Mildly interesting announcements, I suppose. Still, frustrating for those waiting for news that really should have been provided by now. What of pricing and availability information for the Pre? When will we be given that?

A Post-Macworld Apple Event? History Would Seem to Suggest So

John Paczkowski — Mon, 12 Jan 2009 16:28:32 +0000

Macworld 2009 is over, but the rumors that prefaced it and were then left unaddressed, remain. Two in particular: an updated iMac and a redesigned Mac mini–both of which failed to make an appearance during Phil Schiller’s Macworld keynote, though it was widely believed they would. After all, both are long overdue for a refresh. And there’s some evidence that Apple has been planning one.

The refresh may happen yet, however. Apple (AAPL) has on many occasions uncrated new products on the heels of Macworld. In February of 2008, the company announced new iPhone & iPod touch models. In February of 2006 it debuted the Intel Mac mini and iPod Hi-Fi. In January 2005 it uncrated new PowerBooks and a month later, it announced a new iPod mini and an update to iPod photo.

Clearly there’s quite a precedent for post-Macworld announcements, and in all likelihood this year will see a few as well. Certainly, an Apple desktop event later this month or in early February would be an elegant way for the company to dovetail the official release of iLife ’09 with some new desktop hardware, celebrate the 25th anniversary of the Macintosh and prove once and for all that it doesn’t need Macworld to publicize new product releases.

Weekend Update 1.11.09

Beth Callaghan — Sun, 11 Jan 2009 19:00:23 +0000

There’s got to be a joke somewhere in the fact that Macworld, the Consumer Electronics Show and the AVN Awards (the “Pornies”) all happen during the same week. Maybe even one that hasn’t been played out 10 times over. All Things Digital was too busy covering two out of three this week to think of one.

Digital Daily was on hand at Macworld ’09 Monday. Despite the flurry of wonky reporting about the health and/or “imminent death” of Steve Jobs–put into perspective here by BoomTown–nothing too remarkable happened during Apple’s (AAPL) final appearance at the annual event. Phil Schiller did a solid job delivering the keynote in Jobs’s place, introducing a new 17-inch MacBook Pro with an eight-hour internal battery and some innovative updates to iWork and iLife. Schiller ended his keynote with the announcement of changes in pricing and digital rights management for iTunes, punctuated by the surprise appearance of crooner Tony Bennett. Apparently, as Bennett sang, the best is yet to come. Crack photojournalist Adam Tow was on hand to capture the keynote in its entirety–All Things Digital’s photo coverage can be found here.

MediaMemo reported from CES about the pervasive 3-D theme of the conference and wondered whether people would pay cash to see a football game in 3-D at a theater instead of just staying home. There was the ongoing litany of the casualties of the econalypse: “Semantic” ad network Peer39 shut down its ad operation this week, Hearst is about to pull the plug on the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, Forbes announced layoffs and Sir Howard Stringer announced the elimination of thousands of jobs at Sony (SNE). MediaMemo also caught the much anticipated introduction of Palm’s (PALM) new smartphone, the Palm Pre, and its new Web OS, a combo Palm deems superior to the iPhone and that many others consider Palm’s last chance for survival. The product’s success or failure will have a lot to do with its pricing, about which there’s much disbelief.

BoomTown had the lowdown this week on an amusing rumor about a Microsoft-backed (MSFT) run at Yahoo (YHOO), the emergence of Carol Bartz as the top prospect for Yahoo CEO and Microsoft’s deal with Verizon (VZ) and Dell (DELL) to distribute search. Jerry Yang submitted to the all-seeing eye of BoomTown’s Flip camera along with Yahoo President Sue Decker to talk about Yahoo’s new product, Connected TV. The camera also caught some chatty attendees and a few demos, including one of a new Disney (DIS) music product given by a guy who looked like a member of ZZ Top.

Speaking of ZZ Top, catch gadget godfather Walt Mossberg trying out some 3-D glasses on his annual odyssey around the convention floor. All he needs is a longer beard and a ‘32 Ford and he could be a band member, too. Walt and colleague Katie Boehret caught many of the more interesting gadgets on video, and Walt previewed some more for FOX News.

More next week.

Macworld '09: Behind the PhilNote

John Paczkowski — Wed, 07 Jan 2009 19:00:19 +0000

[ See post to watch video ]

Macworld '09: One Last Thing–DRM-Free iTunes Plus, 3G iTunes and Tony Bennett

John Paczkowski — Tue, 06 Jan 2009 18:27:56 +0000

Looks like today’s keynote will include a “One More Thing” moment after all, even without Steve Jobs to deliver it. And it will focus on iTunes. Three big updates to the iconic software today.

Three new pricing tiers in April: $.99, $.69 and $1.29
iTunes Plus eight million songs DRM-free today. By the end of this quarter, all songs will be DRM-free in iTunes Plus
Finally, the iTunes store will be available to iPhone and iPod touch users via Wi-Fi AND 3G networks beginning today.

This is a big step for Apple (AAPL), says Phil Schiller, and a big step for music. And with that, he welcomes Tony Bennett to the stage to close out Apple’s final Macworld. Bennett’s first song: “The Best is Yet to Come,” followed quickly by a second, “I Left My Heart in San Francisco.”

After a few parting words from Schiller, the keynote address ends. No jaw-dropper announcements, no cameo appearance from Jobs, but a good keynote just the same. Schiller did his boss proud, I think.

MacWorld 2009 Keynote Photos: iTunes and Tony Bennett

View photos at SmugMug

Macworld ’09: iWork '09, iWork.com

John Paczkowski — Tue, 06 Jan 2009 17:54:11 +0000

Number two on Phil Schiller’s list of three announcements: iWork ’09. The next iteration of Keynote, Apple’s presentation application, offers some new object transition features: object zoom, a swing transition (Schiller demos it with a Bush-to-Obama slide that gets a laugh from the audience). There are also some new text transitions and chart animations. Finally, Apple’s offering a Keynote Remote application. It’s an iPhone app, of course. Cost: 99 cents.

Pages, Apple’s word processing application, is also getting a bit of an update. Pages ’09 offers a full-screen view for the easily distracted writer, dynamic outlining, mail merge with Numbers–Apple’s spreadsheet program–and 40 new templates. Not the most exciting stuff, here, but decent additions nonetheless.

In Numbers, Apple (AAPL) has added some new categorization features–Table Categories, and, answering user requests, some 250 new formulas and functions. New charts, trend lines and other advance reporting options as well.

iWork is also migrating from the desktop to the cloud–in a sense. Via iWork.com, users can easily upload documents and share them with collaborators. Docs are viewable online. They can be downloaded. And collaborators can comment on them online. iWork.com is cross-platform (Mac and PC) and cross-browser. The online suite looks very much like the Mac-based suite.

iWork will run you $79, $49 if you purchase a new Mac. “This is the beginning of a new service,” Schiller noted, adding that it’s a beta and launches today, solo and as part of a $169 box set that includes iLife and Leopard.

MacWorld 2009 Keynote Photos

View photos at SmugMug

Macworld '09: Garageband "Learn to Play," "Artist Lessons"

John Paczkowski — Tue, 06 Jan 2009 17:43:31 +0000

Macworld keynoter and Apple SVP Phil Schiller returns to the stage to explain Apple’s (AAPL) Garageband ’09. Our team was challenged to help people learn to play a musical instrument and they came through, says Schiller. Garageband now offers a feature called “Learn to Play” which offers not just nine basic lessons for guitar and piano, but “Artist Lessons” from the likes of John Fogerty, Norah Jones and Sting. Basic lessons, the first nine anyway, are free. Artist lessons are $4.99.

Schiller moves on quickly, adding that iLife ’09 will also feature updates to iWeb. It will ship at the end of this month for $79. Free with the purchase of a new Mac.

MacWorld 2009 Keynote Photos: GarageBand 09

View photos at SmugMug

Macworld ’09 LIVE

John Paczkowski — Tue, 06 Jan 2009 17:03:41 +0000

With the misinformation surrounding Apple (AAPL) CEO Steve Jobs’s health finally refuted, Phil Schiller’s Macworld keynote address today will likely be quite a bit less somber than it was shaping up to be.

Certainly, the Macworld audience will be in a more jovial mood now that the morbid undercurrent that might otherwise have darkened the event has been dispersed. Schiller too. Now he need not worry about the audience’s preoccupation with Jobs’s health, but just about filling the Apple CEO’s considerable keynote shoes.

And that’s probably far more disconcerting.

Perhaps, Jobs will make a cameo appearance via iChat and help him out a bit.

A few minutes after 9 a.m. and Schiller takes the stage before a packed audience. Cheers all around. Schiller doesn’t bring the same Houdini-esque gravitas that seems to surround Steve Jobs, but the audience welcomes him just the same. Clearly, everyone’s eager to hear what he has to say. And wondering if he has a rabbit or two to pull from the Apple R&D hat.

An appreciative Schiller welcomes the crowd and thanks everyone for showing up. He says it’s an incredibly exciting time for Apple, and offers a quick overview of company’s newest retail stores. A handful of product announcements follow. Click on the links below for the rest of our coverage:

Macworld ’09: All About the Mac, iLife ’09, Faces and Places

Macworld ’09: iMovie ’09

Macworld ’09: Garageband “Learn to Play,” “Artist Lessons”

Macworld ’09: iWork ’09, iWork.com

Macworld ’09: 17-inch MacBook Pro With 8-Hour Battery

Macworld ’09: One Last Thing–DRM-Free iTunes Plus, 3G iTunes and Tony Bennett

Macworld 2009: Live and in Living Color [PHOTO SLIDESHOW]

Macworld ‘09: Not With a Bang, But an Update to iWork

Steve Jobs's Health: Chalk It Up to Hormones

John Paczkowski — Mon, 05 Jan 2009 18:34:52 +0000

[ See post to watch video ]

Stock ManAAPLation? [Updated]

John Paczkowski — Fri, 02 Jan 2009 19:38:22 +0000

On Dec. 30, with just a couple of hours left in the penultimate trading session of the year, Apple’s (AAPL) shares hit $87.99 and seemed to be well on their way back to $90. But before they could break $88, claims that Steve Jobs’s declining health is the real reason the Apple CEO won’t deliver the keynote at Macworld 2009 cut the legs out from under them. The rumor was quickly dismissed, but not before AAPL plunged to $85.04.

As I noted that day, the timing of the rumor seemed a bit suspicious. With little in the way of news during the holiday week, Jobs’s decision to bail on the Macworld keynote issue still fresh in our minds and his health an obvious shareholder concern, it seemed a bit like an AAPL manipulator’s perfect storm.

Apparently, there may be a bit more to that armchair theory than I thought. Over at Traderhood, writers with far more stock analysis acumen than I, suggest that Apple shares were poised for a huge breakout in price the afternoon of Dec. 30, bolstered by a general upward trend in the market and their own ascending triangle (click on chart below) when they very suspiciously had the wind knocked out of them. “Amazingly at the very point where AAPL’s spike at the tip of the ascending triangle should happen, rumor was introduced and killed the setup completely,” Traderhood blogger Conschmillo explains. “I mean you can have things to happen unexpectedly. It happens all the time, it is a stock market, but to have them placed this [precisely] when everything else is taking off, AAPL included, makes me believe, there is more than meets the eye to why AAPL price is down. If this rumor was not introduced, AAPL would be somewhere around $93.”

So, a favorable technical set-up was thwarted at the moment the odds favored the opposite happening. Coincidence?

UPDATE: Apparently, it was a coincidence. Brian Lam, Editorial Director of Gizmodo, which published the rumor, tells me the site was tipped off well before Dec. 30.

[Image credit: Tin foil hat courtesy Patrick Daley]

(Thanks Barry )