Today in Tech - Sunday June 7, 2009

This weekend's tech headlines continue to revolve around the latest software and hardware releases, with plenty of old fashioned PR razzle dazzle in an attempt to get above the fold on the morning paper. Elbowing for first is the Palm Pre mobile device, Microsoft Bing search engine, Sony and MS camera based gaming and Apple's latest tweak on the brand savior that keeps on giving, the iPhone.

Palm Pre Launch

According to cnet News, the much anticipated commercial release of Palm Pre failed to overtake the records set by the initial release of the iPhone. The lukewarm turn out may have not come as much surprise to some casual observers of tech market trends, but the PalmPre is actually a pretty decent competitor to the iPhone compared to the revamped Blackberry (in my biased opinion), and it's too bad that the PalmPre showed up about 18 months too late to the party to have the debutante ball that it deserved. On the upside, Sprint's contract with the PalmPre will make it available to a much wider swath of the public than that of an unlocked iPhone, which is .

Yahoo not Boinked by Bing Just Yet

Yesterday's rumors of the new Microsoft search engine Bing's first week defeat over Yahoo appear to have been greatly exaggerated, according to reports by DailyTech and cnet. While yesterday's headlines trumped Bing as the early winner amongst content laden search engine sites, the vast majority of these reports were based upon data fromStatCounter which is now being seriously disputed by other reputable sources.

Gaming without Controls

Last week's E3 2009 gaming conference has kept the buzz on the next wave of home gaming where the only controller you need to play is your own body. Sony and Microsoft are already starting to battle it out for who will come out on top with the most intuitive voice and body recognition technology that will usher in the true game changer in the future of the gaming industry. Although I have an in depth article that will be posted here by Wednesday discussing in depth what camera based gaming might mean for the future of video games, you can get the inside scoop now here and here.

Build Up to the Apple Developer Conference

Fresh on the heels of E3 and Palm Pre's debut, final preparations are underway for Apple's Worldwide Developer Conference. Apple will be officially releasing the skinny on their newest operating system, Snow Leopard, as well as the latest version of their market dominating flagship mobile device, now dubbed as iPhone 3.0. While few other than the most obsessed iPhone devotees have sweat much in anticipation of the iPhone 3.0, the new software does have some increased functionality. The fact that it is rolling out just in time to squash Monday PalmPre headlines, however, is unlikely to be just some coincidence.

Sources:

http://news.cnet.com/8301-1035_3-10258825-94.html?tag=mncol
http://www.dailytech.com/Reports+of+Yahoo+Getting+Binged+Appear+to+be+Mistaken/article15346.htm
http://news.cnet.com/8301-17939_109-10258576-2.html
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g_txF7iETX0
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GH_gDreIdcM
http://www.informationweek.com/news/personal_tech/iphone/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=217701821