Joe Wilcox

Should I feel special? Today I got an invitation from Amazon offering "free, instant access" to "membership-only fashion destination" MyHabit.com. Are you a "valued Amazon.com customer," who received this invite, too?

I'm a sucker for good marketing but I'm a perpetual T-Shirt, shorts and sneakers wearer. Besides I'm short and chunky. I don't look good in designer anything. I do like Amazon's branding and marketing though. MyHabit.com is truly inspired branding. Every fashionista I know, including my 16 year-old daughter, is a clothes and fashion addict.

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Apple released new, quad-core iMacs on May 3, indicating continued commitment to desktop computers, even as their sales as a percentage of revenue steadily declines.

The new models are substantial upgrades inside: Intel i5 quad-core processors across the line, switch to AMD graphics and addition of Thunderbolt i/o ports. The previous generation featured i3 dual-core processors (and one model i5 quad-core), nVidia graphics and FireWire and USB 2.0 ports (no Thunderbolt). As with previous iMacs, consumers can choose from 21.5-inch and 27-inch -- priced between $1,119 and $1,999.

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You'll have to look real hard to find IE9 in NetApplications April browser user share data. IE9 doesn't even make NetApp's browser-version breakdown chart for all operating systems, although its usage share was 2.41 percent. By comparison, Firefox 4.0, which launched 7 days later, snatched 5.43 percent usage share. Both browsers debuted in March.

The kicker: Windows 7. Microsoft only released IE9 for that operating system and Windows Vista. By comparison, Firefox 4 runs on XP, which is still the majority of the Windows install base. Whoops, Firefox 4 has higher usage share there, too -- 8.40 percent to IE9's 7.46 percent. But don't cry for Microsoft. IE8 has 47.54 percent usage share.

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There will be many postmortems written this week about social media's role disseminating news that U.S. special forces killed terrorist Osama bin Laden. For Betanews readers, I'd like to start the process informally, by simply asking how you heard the news. Please answer in comments and take the poll below.

I also think the discussion may be cathartic for some of you. The September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks that brought down the Twin Towers and destroyed part of the Pentagon were a national trauma. For many people, the death of bin Laden, architect of those attacks, is a moment of national jubilation -- of closure. The spontaneous crowds that gathered on Pennsylvania Ave. outside the White House or Ground Zero in New York overnight show the national euphoria and relief.

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Today, Sony issued an official statement about the resumption of PlayStation Network services, starting soon. The company also revealed plans to compensate subscribers with some freebees as part of the "Welcome Back" program, which include 30 days free PlayStation Plus and Qriocity music streaming services. Sony will reveal further details about the freebees on a region-by-region basis.

I attempted to log into PSN early this afternoon Eastern Time, and the service was still down. However, instead of the immediate appearance of the "PlaySation is currently undergoing maintenance" screen, about 10 seconds passed first. That could be sign of nothing, but it's the most response I've seen from PSN in about 12 days.

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It's time to publicly pose the question that many of PSN's 77 million subscribers must be asking privately. Should they just give up and buy Xbox 360 and subscribe to Xbox Live, possibly giving up hundreds, even thousands of dollars, in games and peripherals? As the outage goes on -- 10 days now -- and the news grow grimmer, it's not unreasonable to wonder when enough is enough.

Hackers broke into PSN between April 17-19 and stole massive amounts of personally-identifying user data. On April 20, Sony voluntarily took down the network, after discovering the hack. The action may have helped prevent further data losses and allowed Sony, third-party security investigators and law enforcement to begin a forensic analysis of the hack. Meanwhile, Sony works to restore the service with improved security.

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"Increasingly, smartphones will drive market growth. This means feature phone makers will either need to become smartphone dependent or consolidate that part of the market." That statement, from Kevin Restivo, IDC senior research analyst, describes the outlook for the global handset market in 2011. If he's right, and by every indication he is, Nokia will likely lose more market share during the Windows Phone transition. Perhaps more than Gartner and IDC already have forecast.

Nokia's dominance is driven by sales of feature handset and dumb phones, particularly in emerging markets. But those same markets have started adopting smartphones at brisk pace, according to IDC. The handset manufacturer's core problem is threefold:

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Today, after the closing bell, Microsoft answered an oft-asked question: What would the quarter be with no new major products in the pipeline? Would Windows 7 and Windows Server R2 (released October 2009) and Office 2010 (released May 2010) provide enough sales tailwinds?

For fiscal 2011 third quarter, ended March 31, Microsoft's revenue rose 13 percent to $16.43 billion, year over year. Operating income: $5.71 billion, or 10 percent increase. Net income rose 31 percent to $5.23 billion, or 61 cents a share. Earnings per share rose by 36 percent year over year.

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As the PSN outage enters its eighth day, some online gamers surely are asking "What now? What can I do?" You've spent more than a week -- yes, it does feel like years -- in front of the TV looking at the PSN offline message and hoping the network will magically come back up. Sorry, bud, but the only magic is in the game.

I present some things you can do while waiting for PlayStation Network to come back up -- and perhaps buckle under the load of 77 million subscribers trying to change their passwords all at the same time. To our readers, the list is but a start. Please offer your own activities in comments. Let's have some real fun with this. Hey, adding to this list is one of the things to do while waiting for PSN. In no particular order of importance:

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Mobile devices running iOS generated $43.79 billion for Apple during calendar 2010, or about 57 percent of revenues. But it is the rise in overall revenue and net profit that is most significant, as seen from the chart above. Perhaps more surprising, Apple's calendar first quarter 2011 net profit was just slightly less than that of the holiday quarter, when iOS device sales were even stronger.

The revenue curve from Q1 to Q4 2010 is simply stunning. Apple revenue nearly doubled, as did its net profit -- from $13.5 billion to $26.7 billion and $3.1 billion to $6 billion, respectively. In April 2010, Apple launched iPad, which generated about $10 billion in revenue during 2010. Without iPad, Apple would have generated only $66.28 billion last year -- still impressive.

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In the 24 hours since Sony informed the world that PSN had been hacked, customers are finally getting useful information about the hack and risk to them. Clearly, Sony is trying to quell fears about the privacy risk posed to as many as 77 million subscribers.

Today's update was a Q&A, labeled #1, so more may be coming. The post responds, in part, to questions PlayStation Network subscribers asked in comments to yesterday's shocking post admitting hackers had stolen massive amounts of data -- account names and passwords, addresses and phone numbers, birth dates and security questions. Exactly how did the hackers get so much information?

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That's not just PCs but servers, too.

Today Gartner offered a refreshing perspective on operating systems, carving up the market by revenue share rather than units. By that measure, Windows combined PC and server OS share was 78.6 percent in 2010, up 8 percent year over year. While Windows' lead is commanding, Mac OS is growing faster, up 15.8 percent to $520 million in revenue. But the king of growth is Oracle, which share rose 7,683 percent from $10 million to $780 million year over year. Oracle catapulted from ninth to fourth place and ahead of fifth-ranked Apple, mainly from its April 2009 Sun Microsystems acquisition and Solaris with it.

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That's the question the company is trying to answer "No" today, with a FAQ presented in its entirety below. With top-10 lists all the rage, Apple presents 10 questions and answers about reported iPhone tracking. Is Apple watching you? Do you even care?

The controversy started last week, when researchers Alasdair Allan and Pete Warden uncovered a so-called hidden data file with tracking information on iPhone. The discovery set off a row of controversy about Android and Windows Phone possibly tracking users, too. I know that Nexus S tracks, at least by default. Within a day of activating the device last December, I received email warning: "Google Latitude is running on your mobile device and reporting your location." Gee, thanks, Google.

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Wouldn't it be funny if millions of people held back buying iPhone 4 because they wanted white? To many of Betanews' geekiest readers, that question is outrageous in the asking -- let alone answering it. But high tech is as much about fashion, what it says about you, as utility. Otherwise, why are there products like Apple MacBook Air or Samsung Series 9 notebooks?

Look at Bluetooth earpieces or men's watches, for example, where design makes a statement about you. How many men choose Invicta watches for their enormous size and bold, tough guy appearance? Automobiles have long been the ultimate in design statement. Then there is what Apple has done with colors, for the iPod line and, more recently, iPad Smart Covers. Design matters.

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For as many as 77 million PlayStation subscribers, Sony delivered grim news today: Not only is PlayStation Network still down, but hackers obtained users' personal information, including logins and passwords. Credit card numbers and expiration dates "may have been obtained." That "may have" is a polite way of saying probably did.

Not only has Sony taken six days to come clean but PSN is still down, so subscribers can't log in to change their compromised information. That's what I wanted to do right away, if for no other reason than a sense of control and security. That Sony can't, or won't, bring back PSN says something extraordinary about the potential scope of the breach.

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