Elliott C. Back: Internet & Technology

TechCrunch just released new photos and specs of their internet Tablet prototype B, which for $299 features a 12″ 1024×768 touchscreen, Via Nano processor, 1GB of RAM, 4GB flash drive, wifi, accelerometer, camera, four cell battery, and Ubuntu with a custom WebKit browser. Arrington says the 12.5″ x 9.7″ x 1.3″ device weighs three pounds.

What TechCrunch is trying to do is create a 4x larger version of the iPhone centered around the browsing experience. To do this they need three things: a good price point, intuitive user interface, and beautiful industrial design. They’ve made good progress, but they are clearly not there yet; $299 is extremely close to the full-featured HP 2133-KX869AT 8.9-inch Mini-Note PC (C7-M 1.2 GHz Processor, 1 GB RAM, 120 GB Hard Drive, Linux) for $350. Consumers would probably rather buy a netbook–miniature notebook–than a browser-tablet at the $300 price point.

To improve their price, the TechCrunch team needs to throw away all components adding cost–the external ports, the webcam, and anything else that gets in the way. They’ll have to aggressively negotiate manufacturing contracts. But, if they can hit their original $200 target, they’ll have a winner.

The next ingredient is the killer UI. That’s what made the iPhone into an overnight hit, something Gizmodo reader KVirtanen noted:

Simply think through everything. Make it look and work like it’s worth over 300$ and people will be all over it. Listen to your potential customers when making decisions. Make it so that it almost slips on to your hands and your fingers just automatically finds the on-screen buttons (and maybe also some physical ones). Let people with good eye comment on the design.

This way it’ll be a long-lasting tool, not something you’ll end up replacing after you get fed up with the way it works or after it breaks.

Finally, the design of the case in prototype B sucks. It’s thick and unwieldy. Mike says that “It’s about twice as thick as is needs to be without further engineering – we just built in a safety thickness in case of heat or other issues.” Getting it down to .7″ thick and removing much of the unnecessary border around the screen will go a long way to making it consumer friendly. From the screens, it also looks like the bezel rides quite a bit higher than the screen surface. The iPhone face is one smooth surface, something that make it feel like a quality product a person would want to own.

If prototype C can be profitable at $200, throws away all the components not central to the TC Tablet’s mission, has a great user interface, and looks 100000x sexier than prototype B, I’ll be willing to revisit this headline. Otherwise, competing with the netbooks, it’s doomed.

Yahoo’s domain registration offering is a gigantic rip-off sucking scam. GoDaddy gets a bad rep for plastering all of its pages with offers to receive services you don’t really need, but at least it doesn’t automatically sign you up and charge you for those services. Yahoo does worse; they’ve mastered domain bait-and-switch.

I had two domains with Yahoo–one of which I don’t even use–so I was surprised to see them charge me $34.95 for each domain for a single year’s renewal. That’s right, Yahoo charged me $70 to renew two domains, more than four times what a market-rate provider like GoDaddy would have charged. And, I wasn’t given any advance notice that I’d be charged through the nose on renewal.

The key is in noticing those notorious “details.” If you click on them, the pricing structure is clearly laid out–yes, Yahoo will screw you every way they can–they’re quite willing to tell you.

That’s right, if you sign-up for a year of a domain using their ridiculously low $1.99 initial price, the next year when they automatically renew your domain will cost you $34.95. Your total cost comes to $18.47 a year if you go with Yahoo.

Yahoo Sucks… oh yes they do…

US Airways Flight 1549 crashed in New York’s Hudson River today at 3:31 PM after suffering a “double bird strike” at 3,200 feet. The Airbus A320 was carrying 150 passengers, two pilots, and three flight attendants.

As soon as the plane hit the water, “a small flotilla of boats” arrived to rescue passengers, including the Coast Guard Cutter Ridley, and New York Police Department divers. Tom Fox, general manager, brought the New York Water Taxi to assist as well.

Mayor Bloomberg said the pilot did “a masterful job.” I agree–landing a plane dead stick over America’s densest metropolis without a single casualty is amazing. If the City of New York doesn’t award him a stipend and medal, US Airways had better write him a $1M bonus for his excellent performance. The Airforce might also be interested in someone of his talents.

Please see Latest Updates on Hudson Jet Rescue from the New York Times for more information! Gawker has also setup a Hudson Plane Crash tag.