Who’s on Crack in tech 2.12.10

Welcome to another Who’s on Crack where we look back with all the power of hindsight and use it have some fun at companys that hit it just off the mark. This week we’ll look at:

• TiVo plans to rewind themselves
• Droid Does (not)
• More free Kindles
• We’ll all stop listening to Warner Music

TiVo to bring out the next big ______

Our Natesh Sood writes, “on March 2, 2010, TiVo will be holding an event in New York City presumably regarding some new innovating technology. The flyer they have sent around includes the phrase “Inventing The DVR Was Just A Warmup.” For TiVO DVR enthusiasts, this is definitely exciting news.”

I am a huge fan of TiVo (I’ve got the HD) and if they are not talking about legal proceedings here (they’ve been embattled in lawsuits with DVR providers for years) then this could be big. TiVo created the DVR category, or at least made it mainstream to the point of “just TiVo it” creeped into our language to define a category. What are they up to next?

Many point to the leak of TiVo Premier which would seem to fall short of the hype they are looking to build. Premeire is essentially an upgrade to the UI to handle HD (they are not that late, oh wait, yes they are) and will probably do apps like everything else. Sidebar, I was looking up new apps for my microwave yesterday and…nevermind.

Don’t get me wrong, I’d be psyched for Premier, but will it make inventing the DVR look like a warmup? I think not.

Droid Does (not)

Proving yet again that you can’t believe everything you read, even if it is on Facebook and Motorola’s own support site, as was a pending update of the Droid to Android 2.1 from Motorola. Again our Natesh wrote, “it’s a wonder why details about Android 2.1 were posted not only on Facebook but their support website, which have since been removed. Matt claims people inside Motorola posted information about the release prematurely, probably due to enthusiasm. While it may seem like a little error on Motorola’s part, it definitely annoyed DROID owners because they were on the verge of receiving a pretty nice update. Who knows exactly when the update will become available at this point. ”

Whoops-a-daisy. 2.1 looks to be a pretty big update in the way the OS looks with some handy widgets and the like. Let’s hope Motorola gets it together and gets 2.1 out soon.

More free Kindles

The rumors again swirl on Amazon purportedly giving free Kindles to Prime members. Our Robert Nelson reports, “the story suggests that Amazon is looking for a way to give ALL Amazon Prime customers a free Kindle. The catch here is that Amazon is said to still be working on a way to do that without losing a bunch of money.”

Amazon finally looks to be thinking about longevity. If they get Kindles in folks hands, they’ve be less like to duplicate the device with, say, an iPad. Then they are locked in to Amazon’s book choices and theoretically, Amazon should profit. We’ve got to wonder just how much Amazon fears the iPad – could they open this offer up to all who seek a free Kindle? How much would that upset the early adapters?

Warner Music says nada mas

This week, our Andrew Kameka wrote (in a very nice piece, I might add), “Warner Music Group, one of the world’s largest music conglomerates, has said it will stop licensing songs to free music streaming services.” This move will severely impact some of our favorite sites like Pandora, Slacker, Spotify and more.

So I am getting ready to protest Warner Music. Who needs them, I thought, let’s take it to the street (or at least delete channels that have their music). Then I stopped and looked at exactly who is Warner Music. I was stopped dead in my tracks.

A-Ha.

Damn, they got me.There is no way we can live without the Norwegian synth band tour de force that is a-ha. Take on Me is perhaps the finest thing ever to flow out of my computers speakers and is oft compared with the likes of Beethoven and Brahms. But those crackers didn’t have music videos to take music to a new level like a-ha did. Behold the comic book story that hit MTV like a wave of hungry ants over a falling, melting Popsicle stick.

I mean, really folks, look at their hair. Awesome.

Warner’s also go the likes of Twisted Sister, Guns and Roses, Winger and many more popular artists. There is no way we can live with them, ok, mostly without a-ha. Warner knows this and they are going to make us pay in typical music label fashion. Look later this year for the “SAVE a-ha” shirts in the Gadgetell gift shop.