|
|
Archive for April, 2010
Friday, April 30th, 2010
 Andy Rubin was giving a very interesting talk at the Google campus and here are some of the key highlights that the man discussed:
First off, about Steve Jobs. We all know how much of a loudmouth Steve Jobs is, and there is no doubt that everyone has an opinion on the topic. While we certainly believe that Mr. Rubin has got a lot more to say on the topic than he lets on, we respect his stand on the situation: “I don’t really have a rationale for that. It’s a different style of interacting with the public and the media.”
Well, Jobs just pushed away people looking for porn to use and Android. And any healthy, self-aware adult can appreciate the value of adult entertainment without looking like the sleazebag that Jobs was.
Of course, still on the Apple dilemma, the Google man also had some key points to say about having an SDK: “We use the same tools we expect our third-party developers to. We have an SDK we give to developers. and when we write our Gmail app, we use the same SDK. A lot of guys have private APIs. We don’t. That’s on policy and on technology. If there’s a secret API to hook into billing system we open up that billing system to third parties. If there’s a secret API to allow application multitasking, we open it up. There are no secret APIs. That is important to highlight for Android sake. Open is open and we live by our own implementations.”
Right now, there is still a very solid gap between Apple and Google. But with the continuous decline of public perception in Apple and the rise of Google as a stable system that can potentially provide a suitable market for app developers, the balance of things may eventually shift over to Google.
Tags: Andy-Rubin, Apple, Google, google-android
Posted in Google Phones | No Comments »
Friday, April 30th, 2010
 Well, we certainly cannot blame HTC for being reassuring that their company is working on a new WP7 device.
According to the folks at the Taiwan based company; the next HTC WP7 device will come with a more standard touch screen format –following the type 1 chassis of the predetermined hardware configurations that are allowed for the new Microsoft made operating system. And since the WP7 cannot be skinned, this will be one of the few HTC devices that will not be making use of the HTC Sense user interface.
With this confirmation, the roster of confirmed WP7 devices has just gone up. The LG Panther is already set as well as the new Dell smart phone (the one with a portrait slider). It is also reported that devices from Samsung and Sony Ericsson are on the way, but details and eve a full confirmation has yet to be made.
In other news, it appears that HTC has decided to bring in some new Microsoft powered muscle in the lawsuit charged against them by Apple. According to the Cupertino based company, HTC has infringed on 20 hardware and software patents and that plenty of Android devices are being targeted by the lawsuit.
HTC has declared that it has its own patents and that it will be defending itself against Apple’s accusations. Many believe that HTC has taken the agreement to purchase patent license from Microsoft –which means that MS will be earning from almost every HTC branded Android smart phone.
Many also feel that HTC’s decision to tie up with Microsoft is a way of setting the line between them and Apple –and considering the lawsuit being filed against them, the result is no longer a surprise.
Tags: Apple, HTC, LG-Panther, Windows-Phone-7
Posted in HTC Phones | No Comments »
Friday, April 30th, 2010
 One of the biggest headlines that you would be seeing today is the announcement that Hewlett Packard has purchased Palm for a very hefty price of over £783 million. It is a pricey investment and one that many doubt would pay off (HP’s share value went down after the purchase was announced). Despite this, plenty of tech fans are quite eager to see what will happen next to Palm and what kind of new devices HP is planning to create with the new technology they just earned.
Palm’s existing patent library is very extensive. They are the first to come up with PDA devices and Palm is considered to be the forerunner of smart phone standards. Despite this, the performance and sales in the previous months have been very lackluster, and no matter how impressive their most recent products are, the lack of marketing has sent the company on the fringes of tech obscurity.
Sure, the few people who picked up the Palm Pixi and the Palm Pre have been outright impressed with the handset, and none has directly made it to the UK unless it was exported elsewhere. With the US market already dominated by their rivals, Palm was lost in the haze and even failed to successful penetrate the international market.
On the other hand, things are quite different for people on the HP side of things. Many consider the purchase to be quite exciting, but there are those who sincerely doubt the effectiveness of the move –costing Palm plenty in terms of their shares. But Palm executives are quite confident that they made the right move in going after HP –now that they are committed to actually stepping into the smart phone industry.
Tags: Hewlett-Packard, HP, Palm
Posted in Palm Phones | No Comments »
Friday, April 30th, 2010
 Unlike all the other lawsuits that Apple has faced however, this new one has some pretty mighty patent that could potentially wreck havoc in the sales performance of the Apple devices.
Considering how it is often Apple that we see filing lawsuits on other companies, it is surprising that there are those who dare play the danger legal game with the Cupertino based company whose wing of legal advisers and personnel is something akin to a lawsuit hit squad. In any case, Elan Microelectronics has taken on the mighty giant as they claim that Apple has infringed on their patent for multi touch technology. They already successfully won a lawsuit against Synaptics for a similar technology. It is not surprising that this has bolstered their resolve to continue pressing the case against Apple.
Of course, Apple will not be the only target here, many companies use touch screen technology. If Apple falls, so do the rest. We can only assume that once the case against Apple starts looking bad, many companies will be lining up to file for official use of the technology under Elan Microelectronics.
There are also those who believe that this lawsuit might have been spurned on by Google –as a way of fighting back against Apple’s decision to sue HTC on 20 patents for software and hardware. But this claim is pretty much unfounded as Elan Microelectronics has no ties to Google or HTC (though it is also a Taiwanese company).
Speaking of which, Apple’s lawsuit against HTC is assign of its ability to easily strong arm other companies with the sheer might of its legal arm. It is no longer surprising for the Cupertino based company to be involved in a lawsuit each month.
Tags: Apple, Apple-iPhone-3G-S, Apple-iPhone-4G, AppleiPhone, Elan
Posted in Apple Phones | No Comments »
Friday, April 30th, 2010
 We all know that Japan is the absolute birthplace of all things quirky and tech. Even if other countries develop new technologies, leave it to Japan to create a totally bizarre yet marketable twist on the new service or product -or in some cases, absolute and total innovation that makes their new product the prime standard for the industry.
Take the case of the video game industry. Sure, we all know that Atari pretty much ruled everything, but when toy manufacturer Nintendo came up with their video game console, everything changed. Going back a few more years, it was Sony that introduced the Walkman, which suddenly turned the whole music industry inside out by changing the way we listen and carry our music.
Now, it seems that the world of smart phones is about to get a major update from Japan, and this time it will be more than just one company working on the change. According to reports, the combined efforts of NTT DoCoMo, Fujitsu, NEC, Renesas, Sharp and Panasonic will be ushering in a new mobile platform that will be available by 2012.
Of course, that means that it will still be two more years before we see the grand mobile platform from the country that has brought the world giant robots and Godzilla. We can at least expect to see a new OS that will be at as stylish as the Windows Phone 7, as fast and as stable as the Android and of course, come with plenty of apps that would totally leave us scratching our heads in wonder.
The sad part of all this is that there is no guarantee that the OS would ever land outside of Japan. They even stated that it would be cross compatible with the Android OS, so we will just assume that even Android apps would be compatible with the new platform.
Tags: DoCoMo, google-android, Hybrid-OS, Japan
Posted in Industry News | No Comments »
Friday, April 30th, 2010
 Where do you get your news?
News has always been the commercial product output of journalists all over the world. With the introduction of new media, journalism has moved on from print to radio to broadcast television and now, the internet.
However, with everyone with access to the internet being able to post “news” in blogs, personal websites and other similar channels, the label of ‘press’ and ‘journalists’ have been pretty much reserved for those in the more conventional (analog) forms of broadcast media. But considering the real time information and the large scale of readers that bloggers have online, should they still be denied the privileges that is provided to their more contemporary counterparts?
This is the big argument that the United States government will have to address. The recent problems regarding the police raid in the home of Gizmodo tech blogger Jason Chen, many people suddenly have realized that they are not protected by the very same laws that protect newspaper columnists and contributors.
Have you ever taken a moment to study who writes the latest news updates you have on your favorite RSS feeds? More often than not, the people writing these posts are professionals in various fields writing about their specialty –individuals who are not exactly journalists in terms of degree, but in practice. In many ways, a doctor would be a more credible writer for a medical blog than a graduate of journalism doing research on a similar subject. And the internet is the place where this practice is more prolific than anywhere else.
According to the Electronic Frontier Foundation, Jason Chen is a journalist. Despite Apple claiming that the person is a blogger, many still believe that the law should apply.
Tags: Apple, Apple-iPhone-4G, AppleiPhone, Gizmodo, Jason-Chen
Posted in Apple Phones | No Comments »
Thursday, April 29th, 2010
 We all know that Steve Jobs wants to personally shut own Adobe with his bare hands. But for those wondering why, the answer is a little longer to explain than one might expect.
Outright, Mac owners would be the first to tell you that Flash on the Mac is one of the worst combinations ever. Even Apple admits that the main reason why Mac computers would crash is because of trying to load Flash content. You will not always crash when using safari to browse a Flash website, but the chance is always there.
It makes for a good reason as to not include Flash support for the iPhone, iPod Touch, and the iPad –as crashing these devices often due to Flash based applications and Flash websites would make for a really bad user experience.
Still, the hate against Adobe runs much deeper than just Flash –it is mostly because Adobe turned its back on Macintosh when PCs were slowly dominating the computer market back in the 90s. Steve Jobs also requested that Adobe create a Mac version of their video editing software –a request that was refused, further fueling the heat between the two companies.
For many, this friction between the two was unnoticeable. Many graphic artists have relied on the Mac and Adobe combination for the past few years. Many even believed that the two had closer ties than Adobe with Microsoft.
With the war between Adobe and Apple showing its ugly head in the mobile industry, it is inevitable that Adobe would seek and find support among Apple’s many competitors such as Google, Microsoft and Linux. And should Adobe choose to, they can even decide to take Apple to court for the recent SDK License Agreement problem.
Read more about the whole story behind Apple and Adobe and why the hate runs so deep at the PC Advisor UK.
Tags: Adobe, Apple, Apple-iPad, Apple-iPhone-4G, AppleiPhone
Posted in Apple Phones | No Comments »
Thursday, April 29th, 2010
 This is the big question that the United States lawmakers and courts will have to address with the recent turn of events that led to the raid of the home of Jason Chen, a known blogger in the famous Gizmodo tech blog.
Several days ago, Gizmodo run a story that featured exclusive images of the next generation Apple iPhone that was currently still in production. According to the original story, the device was left behind in some bar by an Apple employee and the device was later found by someone else who then sold it to Gizmodo. The story sounded so fishy that within hours of the post of the story many people doubted that origin of the handset and more particularly, its authenticity.
A day later, Apple would request that Gizmodo return the device to their possession –a move that was made public by the tech blog which affirmed the validity of their original story. Many also believed that with this, the two companies in question may be working on the story together -which implied that the whole thing was a fabricated story made to publicize the new iPhone.
Now, the tech community is in a state of surprise as Apple decided to send its legal wing to take action against the tech blog and in effect, request an official legal action in order to retrieve their stolen hardware. According to reports, a team of policemen raided the house of Gizmodo’s tech blogger, Jason Chen.
Under the United States law, journalists are protected from this form of prosecution. While Apple has stated that Chen is a blogger and not a journalist, many feel that that is simply an appropriation of terms and is subject to interpretation.
The courts have yet to make a final ruling on the matter.
Read more about the full story at the Guardian UK.
Tags: Apple, Apple-iPhone-4G, AppleiPhone, Gizmodo
Posted in Apple Phones | No Comments »
Thursday, April 29th, 2010
 It is interesting how the new Spotify service that allows users to share their playlists with their friends is much compared to the concept of mix tapes. While the comparison is quite understandable for many people who appreciate being able to share their fondness and interests in music with their friends, there is something that is missing from the experience.
The one thing that has made mix tape so profound in the Walkman-Boombox era was the fact that the songs that were chosen to be recorded in Mix tapes we more than just catchy tunes that someone heard over the radio, it was also the custom soundtracks of the lives of individuals and their friends.
From that annoying pop song that played repeatedly in a two hour road trip that was punctuated by flat tires to the catchy little ditty that played on the broken elevator cab, these are songs that people share not only for the value of the music themselves, but also for the memories that the songs hold.
Anyway, that is simply something that cannot be packaged into a product –but being able to let your friends know what new tunes you are listening to or getting a sneak peek at their playlists for a quick recommendation of songs is certainly something that many music fans would love.
This is why Spotify’s new pseudo social networking service actually works –because people care to know what their friends listen to. After all, in every group there is this always one or two individuals who have exquisite (or eccentric) tastes in music that are just worth trying out for. Combine that with the high quality music streaming service of Spotify (for only £10 a month too) and you have an excellent service combo that is hard to beat.
Read more about Spotify’s new music service at the Times Online UK.
Tags: Music, Sony-Walkman, Spotify, Walkman
Posted in Industry News | No Comments »
Tuesday, April 27th, 2010
 By now, you would have certainly have heard about the new Kin handsets from Microsoft.
Despite the recent buzz about the upcoming Windows Phone 7 operating system, Microsoft still has the time to come up with a quickly made pair of handsets that social networking addicts would certainly enjoy.
Of course, you can imagine the complaints that smart phone users would be raising: lack of apps, lack of versatility, no Flash, not multitasking, etc. But considering the target market of this device, nobody really minds. The only important thing is that it can play back media, take photos and videos, and most importantly, look flashy while browsing Facebook.
It is a phone for the younger generation of mobile phone users who do not need apps –they just need to be able to check your latest Facebook post and reply to it. In many ways, the Kin smart phones are able to do their intended purpose quite well. Thanks to the Loop system on this Windows CE based platform, users can easily send files, links and other content to their Facebook contacts by simply dragging.
There are two devices in the Kin series, the Kin Turtle and the Kin Pure. The two handsets are quite similar in terms of looks, but the form is pretty different –the Turtle is small and compact device with a portrait slide out keyboard. The Pure on the other hand comes in a more traditional touch screen layout with a slide out keyboard on the side.
The two smart phones met with some controversy a couple of weeks back with the video advertisement allegedly endorsing the practice of sexting. Microsoft has since edited the video to omit the offensive content.
Read more about the new Microsoft Kin mobile phones and get a close look at their specs at Mobile Choice UK.
Tags: Microsoft, Microsoft-Kin, Microsoft-Kin-One, Microsoft-Kin-Two
Posted in Microsoft Phones | No Comments »
|
