Still waiting on Microsoft's response

In the console wars, Sony has clearly drawn first blood with their announcement of the Playstation 4 console and its subsequent coming-out (sort of) party. Following this first strike, everyone waited for Microsoft's return volley.

So far, all we've heard is crickets.

The postmortem of the Playstation 4 event last week by Jeff Bakalar, Scott Stein, and Russ Frushtick on The 404 was chock-full of suggested ways in which Microsoft can come back from behind after the Playstation 4 event. Say what you will about the effectiveness of that event, though, I found myself taken aback by the furvor of their discussion. It was as if Sony were some new bully on the block that just kicked them out of their favorite playground.

Don't get me wrong, I value the opinions of all three of these guys, but let's face facts - Microsoft was caught flat-footed.

I'm not surprised. With the launch of the Surface and Surface Pro tablets, the new Windows 8 platforms, and several other product launches all taking place around the same time, Microsoft has had their hands full on many fronts. Sony's news conference to announce the Playstation 4 was unexpected. Microsoft was caught short.

I expect that Microsoft will have an XBox comeback for Sony within the next couple of weeks, but not much sooner than that.

Why I'm not so sure about the Playstation 4

I wouldn't go so far as to call the recent Playstation 4 "unveiling" an event that was really a non-event. However, it seems curious to have an unveiling where you don't actually show the whole product, just a controller, and a list of specs and features.

And, let's face it, some of the features they listed may not survive to the actual launch of the product. I'm still bitter about the removal of the backwards compatibility from the Playstation 3, at just about the time I was getting ready to buy one.

This certainly adds to my caution against being too excited about the PS4 release, but the bulk of my reasons lie elsewhere. Namely, in the fact that there seems to be a lot of emphasis on the social-integration features that the PS4 will have. There seems to be less emphasis by Sony on the hardware specs, and why I will want to shell out for a new console and possibly for a Vita, too.

If I pull out my wallet for a new console, it won't be so that I can post gameplay videos to share publicly or with friends.

Update your Flash right now

I feel like I saw this article from Feb. 8 a little late, but I just noticed it a little earlier, rolled up in the newsletter email I received from TechRepublic today. According to ZDNet, Adobe rolled out an emergency patch to seal up two vulnerabilities in the Flash Web plug-in.

These vulnerabilities are actively being exploited by malware creators. Downloading the newest version of Flash should resolve these issues and block malware attacks that exploit the vulnerabilities.

So, if you've been ignoring the popup that tells you a new version of Flash is available, stop. Download the newest Flash version now. This is regardless of whether you are using Windows, OS X, Linux, or Android as your operating system.

None of us in the tech world are unused to news about another Flash vulnerability being exploited, but when I see a headline that includes the words "under attack" and "emergency patch", I tend to take the advice put forth by the article seriously.

Knowing it's time to make an immediate update to my Flash is right up there with knowing it was time to ditch Java.

Is Microsoft trying to break into the PC hardware business?

Today, Dell announced that the company was going from publicly-traded to private again. In order to do this, Microsoft helped out with $2 billion of their own money. Makes me wonder: is Microsoft finally making a run at acquiring a PC hardware company?

It has long been rumored that Microsoft might try to get into not only the tablet-making game, but also the PC-making game. But so far, nothing has come of this speculation.

With this announcement and Microsoft's buy-in, I can't help but think that this might be the first in a couple of announcement. Since the Surface tablet is making waves in the tablet world (heck, I'm even thinking about one), I'd be interested in seeing that.

Who isn't happy about this announcement? Hewlett-Packard.

While the AP has suggested that this deal "could poison Microsoft’s relationship with HP, the largest PC maker, and other manufacturers that buy Windows", and turned out to be right, I have to say who cares?

Is HP going to start packaging Linux with their machines? Probably not. Which is why, in this case, they're just going to have to be sore about it and move on.

Juiced up: Sliding back into the blog scene for BlackBerry 10

In case anyone wondered where I went when I fell off the edge of the blog scene for about a year, I've been locked in a room at RIM headquarters, helping to develop Blackberry 10.

Just kidding.

Really, for a while, it just got too hard to juggle blogging and some other things I had going on. But, I am coming back out of my unofficial hiatus with the announcement of the new BlackBerry phones.

A lot of people have been harping about RIM changing their name to just BlackBerry, but frankly, I think that's just being petty. What, can't handle that RIM didn't file for bankruptcy or sell the company, as a lot of people predicted they would by this point? (I'm looking at you, Molly Wood and Brian Tong...)

I digress...

Personally, I'm only interested in the BlackBerry Q10, which sports the standard Qwerty keyboard that most BlackBerry users know and love, so I'll keep my comments limited to that model.