Power Play: What You May Not Know about Batteries, but Should

Batteries used to be about the most boring topic imaginable. We had the big D cells, the slightly smaller C cells, and the small double-A and triple-A cells. You can still find #6 lantern batteries and 9v batteries that came along to power transistor radios 50 or 60 years ago are commonly used in smoke detectors. The real advances began with the advent of rechargeable cells in the 1960s and today people expect powerful computers and phones to provide long service without being too heavy to carry around. How did this come to be?

I spoke with Steve Sutton, who owns several Batteries Plus stores in Columbus. Steve, Battery technology seemed not to change much from the early days of carbon-zinc dry cells until sometime in the 1960s when we started seeing NiCad rechargeable batteries but the rate of change has accelerated and so has confusion. I was thinking, the other day ... Whatever happened to B cells and A cells? And why were there no double-C or triple-C cells ... or were there?

To listen to the 15-minute interview, click the play button:

An Update on DivX

Two weeks ago, I explained how the video player DivX wrecked my browser settings and strongly recommended using the VLC Media Player instead of DivX. Since then, I've heard from a DivX representative who has promised to make the installation process clearer and more transparent. Until then, though, I still consider DivX to be unacceptable.

DivX Product Manager Nancy Ngo has worked at DivX for more than a decade she asked to clarify a couple of points from "DivX, A Good Video Player Gone Bad."

TBWW: The installation was performed without my permission or knowledge and it hijacked both of my primary browsers.

DivX: The Browser Bar and home page and search provider reset do not occur without your permission. Our installer pre-selects the offer by default, but you're allowed to uncheck the box. Unchecking means the Browser bar will not be installed, nor will your home page or search provider be reset.

It's my feeling that no add-on should ever by installed by default. Offer it, explain exactly what will happen, and allow the user to select it, if desired.

TBWW: "I can understand why DivX doesn't explain any of this in advance."

DivX: Actually, we include a screen within our installer that describes the offer. Here's a link to a screen shot I captured after reading your post: https://www.dropbox.com/s/yfhkwhg6ranj7l4/ConduitOfferScreen.png. In this screen shot, you can also see the two boxes you would uncheck if you didn't want to accept the offer.

As I told Nancy, usually I'm careful about watching for unwanted add-ons and I don't recall seeing a choice. Specifically, I don't recall seeing the screen shot that you placed on DropBox.

This was not a new installation but was presented as a player update for the browser, if that makes a difference in what one would see.

TBWW: "The URL passes a significant amount of information from my computer to Conduit (specifically, everything after the question mark in the URL). This isn't private information, but I'm sure that it does identify to Conduit the source of the click so that DivX can collect its pieces of silver."

DivX: We are paid for distribution of Conduit tools, but that happens at the point of installation. And we don't collect, so would not be able to share, your or anyone else's personally identifiable information without your permission.

Conduit, in my opinion, is more at fault than DivX is because of the way it takes over all browsers, destroys the user's settings, and then does everything it can to hide.

This is not an uncommon comment. When I was searching for a way to fix the mess that Conduit had created, I found a large volume of vitriolic comments about the company and its product, including some that claimed (incorrectly) that it is a virus.

The remainder of the message from Nancy Ngo:

Our goal with DivX software is to deliver tools to give people more freedom and more control over their digital media experiences. We applaud the developers of alternative, open source software, but we're a company invested in more than a software media player app. We have built a thriving ecosystem, and are proud that the videos you encode using DivX Converter will play on more than 1 billion DivX devices.

Further, we believe everyone should have access to DivX software tools, which is why we insist on making it free. To keep it free, though, we have to monetize the distribution of our software by including offers from companies like Conduit, Google, Yahoo, etc. (these have all been in our software at some point). The offer is always presented during installation, and always with the ability to opt out, and the software remains free even if you opt out.

We do try to make sure our messaging is clear, and want people to understand what they're installing. However, we understand that users may still miss it and install something unwanted accidentally. We'll evaluate ways to make the Conduit offer even more clear during installation, and I've already been working with Conduit to provide an easier method to uninstall the offer in these cases.

I'm sorry you felt misled and I hear your frustration over trying to uninstall this offer. We will use your feedback to continue to improve your experience with DivX software, and I hope you will give use another chance in the future. I'm really proud of what our team accomplished with the DivX 10 release.

For me, this is simply a question of business ethics and ensuring that a process will fail safely. That is, the default must be the path that will do the least harm. Even if the software presents a message that tells the user that it plans to install an application that will cause harm, it is irresponsible to set the default response for the user to accept the mayhem.

If the user misses a message and simply clicks "OK", the extraneous application simply should not be installed.

If and when DivX modifies both its new installation process and its update process to take that into account, I will reconsider my recommendation regarding its installation.

Short Circuits

The Good Guys Win One for a Change

The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) says that a major Florida spammer has agreed to turn over all of the company's remaining assets and repay up to $377,321 to people it had defrauded. The company sent more than 42 million deceptive text messages to consumers.

Gullible people responded to the messages that promised free gift cards worth up to $1,000, but found that they had to provide their Social Security number, credit card numbers, and other private information. Then, they had to pay for additional services in order to receive the "gift" card.

Rentbro and its owners, Jacob Engel and Daniel Pessin agreed to the settlement. The FTC says that Rentbro's unfair and deceptive practices violated the Federal Trade Commission Act. Unfortunately, the two were not required to admit any wrongdoing and won't serve any jail time. But at least the FTC has shut down some of the spammers that send fraudulent messages. Overall, the FTC has started cases against 29 organizations since spring.

Google Buys Bump, But Why?

Google reportedly has paid about $40 million for Bump, a service that allows people to share contact information and other data by bumping their phones together. That will allow the company to pay back the $20 million raised from venture capital firms and still walk away with more than pocket change, if they want to walk away.

The only question is why Google bought Bump? The technology is about to become obsolete because new Iphones have the technology built in.

Bump was founded in 2008 and, at the time, it was impressive. Instead of carrying a stack of business cards to a trade show and coming home with a stack of other people's cards, those with Bump could just tap their phones together. But that was 5 years ago, several generations in technological time.

Along the way, Bump tried to reposition itself as a social network and a file-sharing service. Now it touts the ability to share photographs, but that marketplace is increasingly crowded. What Google may see in the application is a highly complicated process in the background that is presented to users via a simple, easy-to-understand interface.

And Google may see opportunities for other types of exchanges, maybe using it to make payments—but that technology already exists, too.

Apple phones will feature AirDrop as part of IOS7, the upcoming version of the operating system, so Google may also want to use the technology to provide similar functions on Android devices. Or possibly it would fit in with Google Plus or Picasa. All Google will say at the moment is that Bump will be "a great fit" at Google.

Lightroom 5.2 Update

Adobe Lightroom 5.2 has been released. This is a free update for those who have version 5 installed. It adds support for 19 cameras and includes several process enhancements.

Among the cameras now supported are the Canon EOS 70D, the Fujifilm X-M1, and the Sony DSC-RX100 II.

The enhancements add a feather control to the Spot Removal tool, and a Smoothness adjustment control to the Color Noise Reduction portion of the Detail panel. Both of these will serve to enhance the overall quality of images by making modifications more subtle.

Tethered photography support, which allows the photographer to control a camera from the computer, is supported for 8 additional cameras and a wide variety of lenses are now supported by the Lens Profile System that actively corrects distortion that is specific to each particular lens model.

Adobe says that several bugs reported by users or discovered during Adobe's own quality testing have also been fixed. Full details are on the Lightroom Journal blog.

Google's Canary in the Coal Mine

If you're the adventurous sort, and particularly if you already use Google's Chrome browser, you might want to try the Canary channel. Canary is Google's bleeding edge channel, where you'll find products before they're anywhere near release ready. In the old days, coal miners took canaries into mines to test the quality of the air in the mine. In a way, users of the test versions are the canaries.

Chrome has 4 release channels. First is the one that most people have (stable). Next is the beta channel, the development channel, and canary. Using canary is the equivalent of using a distant-future version of Chrome. Features that are created there move to the development version, the beta version, and then to the release version.

Google describes it this way: "Google Chrome Canary has the newest of the new Chrome features. Be forewarned: it's designed for developers and early adopters, and can sometimes break down completely."

On the good side, you get to see what Google is working on for future versions of Chrome, but without any documentation or clues about what's new. You have to figure that out for yourself. And on the downside, Chrome canary can blow up in your face like a loaded cigar.

It's updated daily so at least you'll get to see new bugs. Developers stop work at 2pm Pacific time and the daily update includes the 40 best updates that are in development.

Because of the way this process works, features that you see on Monday may be gone on Tuesday and back on Friday. Accepted improvements move from Canary to dev and then to beta. The stable versions have a lifetime of about 6 weeks.

If you want to try Chrome Canary, you can download it from Google's website, but it won't replace your existing stable version of Chrome and you can't set it up as your default browser.