Google introduced the world to their new mobile payment service for smartphones aptly named, Google Wallet. While the service isn’t officially live just yet, you can hit up Google.com/wallet to signup and get notified as soon as it is. At present, there is only one telephone in the US that is in fact NFC enabled to take benefit of their new service and I’d envision Google is waiting for the release of some new NFC chipped devices ahead of going live. In case you had been questioning what type of individual would benefit from Google Wallet, nicely — Google already has their very first customer and supplied the video below.
Plenty of questions come to mind when it comes to the various carriers and their Android endeavors. Some seem to get it right more often than not while others have been playing from behind (ahem, AT&T) since day one. Others seem to really want to the platform to help push them over the the hump. I’m looking right at you, T-Mobile.
Thinking back over the last few years, I came up with a bunch of rhetorical questions about the wireless players and their Android efforts. Some of them could be turned into a post of their own, argued on both sides. Normally I will toss these on twitter just to see how you guys and gals respond. Thinking they could be more fun as a whole, I decided collect them and break them into categories. So, here’s the first in a series of (at least) four rhetorical question posts.
I would love to hear your take on some of these so, please, feel free to comment below! No wrong answers here.
Is the “Droid” branding getting too confusing to average consumers?
How confusing would it be if Verizon simply stopped using it?
How much do you really worry about the AT&T and T-Mobile merger?
Ever switched carriers specifically to spite them?
Ever switched back later because you realized the error in your way?
Remember worrying about minutes?
Do you worry about data in the same manner?
Are you seriously going through that much data every single month?
Why do carriers give us all the data-reliant apps and then throw roadblocks in the way?
Why can’t we get rid of these apps without rooting?
Does any carrier hold a new Android user’s hand better than Sprint with their ID Packs?
Is it me or does it seem like T-Mobile can’t figure out rate plans?
Do you remember thinking that Android was going to propel T-Mobile ahead of Sprint?
Remember when their no-contract plans were the ticket to third place?
A company I’ve never heard of – BYD (Build Your Dreams) – was at Mobile World Congress showing off their wares and I thought I’d pass along the memo. Interestingly enough the company started in the battery industry, got into cell phones, then jumped into Automobiles – they sold 500,000 autos in Asia last year – and finally have been exploring renewable energy.
But since you’re interested in Android, take a look:
These aren’t very high powered handsets, but as you can see the only two “branded” devices they have are available in India where smartphone penetration is much lower than America and most of Europe. While you might not be amused, this is exactly what countries with developing telecommunications industries need – affordable access to smartphones.
As Eric Schmidt said in his keynote last night, the great thing about the growth of smartphones in the past couple years is that it’s giving people a voice who were never heard before. Whereas information was formerly only accessible to the elite, smartphones are forcing a shift. Android is certainly a catalyst in that movement and I’m sure BYD would like to help build that dream, too.
Just in case you’ve been wondering what has been happening in the Research In Motion vs. Kik Interactive legal proceedings we’ve got some new to share with you all. We’ve learned from David Lam that Kik Interactive has now filed their Statement of Defence and Counterclaim yesterday at some point. As you may remember, the filed documentation from Research In Motion (PDF) alleged that Kik Interactive CEO, Ted Livingstone while working at Research In Motion had access to sensitive Blackberry Messenger information. As such, the documentation goes on to allege that Ted used his position at Research In Motion to learn things about BlackBerry Messenger, which would later be used within the inner workings of Kik.
In their Statement of Defence and Counterclaim (PDF) Kik goes on to deny these allegations by stating in fact they were not developing Kik at the time of Livingstone’s employment at Research In Motion nor did they infringe upon any of Research In Motions trademarks or patents. They also make sure to point out that at the time, Livingstone had no access to the BlackBerry Messenger source code not any of Research In Motions development plans, market research, and other internal reports related to BlackBerry Messenger.
In the end, Kik Interactive claims the “overnight success of Kik Messenger” put Research In Motion execs on a mission to destroy or seriously harm Kiks reputation by abandoning previously set agreements such as those outlined in the BlackBerry App Word vendor portal and various other arrangements involving developer relations with Research In Motion. Kik claims the suspension and eventual removal of Kik from BlackBerry App World was nothing more just then beginning of a lawsuit, which Research In Motion knows, is meritless and has no real chance of success.
As with most legal cases, we’ll not likely find out anything else until after the dust settles but again, like most legal cases that’s where all the truth tends to come out from both parties and then we get the real story behind all the legal covering and paperwork. Either way, looking back at the situation we understand both parties’ situations. But surely somewhere along that line there has to be a happy medium between the two. Kik is doing well on other platforms and not having it available on the platform it initially launched with just seems wrong. Who knows? Maybe Kik working with Research In Motion on certain elements would be a good thing all around for both parties.
I really enjoyed playing with the Nokia E7 at Nokia World last Fall and was thinking I might pick one up. My orange Nokia N8 is performing quite well at the moment and I cannot justify the $800+ likely unlocked price of the E7 so unless Nokia sends out an eval unit for a bit I won’t be writing a review here on Nokia Experts. However, my buddies over at All About Symbian will indeed be providing full coverage of the device and now that the E7 is shipping you can check out Rafe’s first part that covers an overview of the hardware and some first impressions.
In the past, the Eseries devices have all been priced quite low compared to Nseries smartphones, but with the E7 that looks to have flip-flopped. Rafe’s first part is very detailed and after reading it I started trying to figure out what I could sell to pick one up for myself
I have to try the keyboard though to see if that is enough for me to give up the better camera, smaller form factor, and expandable memory of the lovely N8. As great as the E7 looks, I am not sold that a physical QWERTY keyboard justifies getting rid of my N8.
How many readers are planning to pick up an E7 when they become available?
ASUS just showed off a whole lineup of Android tablets at CES, but chairman Jonney Shih is already touting what’s on the horizon. He apparently has the inside scoop one what will be powering the Apple iPad 2 — supposedly a dual-core ARM Cortex A9-based chip — and claims his company’s future NVIDIA Tegra 2 tablets will have the edge. In fact, Shih said, “to really compete it will take [Apple] some time” to catch up to what ASUS is bringing.
Throw Android 3.0 Honeycomb on whatever they have coming up and I’d say Shih might be talking the truth. In fact, his real competition might end up being Android tablets such as the Motorola XOOM and LG G-Slate.
The tablet market is fairly young, but pretty much its entire life has seen the iPad claiming nearly the entire market. In spite of there being several Android tablets on the market, Apple’s reign in this challenge this has never been contested. And while the last quarter of 2010 may not have seen this title change hands, it did, for the first time ever,see Apple drop below the 95% mark…and it dropped hard. Android is offering a huge variety of tablets at varying price points, with some very capable Acer tablets dropping at $299. When measured against Apple’s $499 offering at the cheapest, that price difference is a huge consideration. While Apple certainly hasn’t seen the last tablet sold, Android tablets are on the rise and will undoubtedly continue to erode the iPad’s lead. Apple’s tablet is expected to slip to as low as 67% in just the next couple of months. Android tablets saw an increase of 22% of the marketshare, up from 2.3% in Q3 2010. At this rate, Android will be well-poised to challenge Apply for dominance by the end of this year, if not sooner.
The Motorola Xoom will almost definitely tip the scales even farther, as the first dual-core tablet to his the market. Those looking for the toughest hardware available will surely give the Xoom their full attention. We’re looking to see what the myriad of tablets have to offer against Apple lead in this department, but frankly, we expect good things, and can’t wait to see how the chips fall.
Earlier this month we told you that Amazon had launched the developer portal for its forthcoming Android App Store, where developers will be able to upload their Android apps for a 30% cut of whatever sales are made. However, it seems that Amazon has decided to control the prices of the apps sold in their store.
Developers will be able to suggest a price, but the final decision will ultimately come down to Amazon. From the beginning it seemed questionable that users (and developers for that matter) were going to turn to the Amazon store as opposed to the traditional Android Market, but with this news I am fully expecting Amazon’s experiment to flop relatively quickly.
According to an article on XDA’s site, it appears that they wanted to administer a caveat to their members regarding the use and distribution of Swype Inc’s popular keyboard application, named after the company. It appears that XDA had a hunch that some distribution laws were possibly being violated, and rightfully so. They reached out to the company regarding the issue for some clarification and this is what Swype Inc had to say on the matter: Read More…
Great tactic to try with kids who keep popping out of their rooms at bedtime. Like all such things, it takes a steely resolve by you, the parent, to pull off, but setting visible limits like this makes a lot of sense. I wonder if using glow-in-the-dark tape would help or hurt the process?
One of the biggest complaints about the Android Market up to this point has been the lack of ways to pay for apps. Now, however, it looks like AT&T users will be happy to know that they can now bill the price of any downloaded app to their carrier bill. No longer will those on AT&T be forced to pay for an app right away. When they go to check out, under the payment method dropdown box, they should see an option that says “Bill my AT&T account”, which will then simply tack on the amount onto their bill at the end of their cycle. No word on how, if at all, this will affect the new 15 minute refund window, but I suppose only time will tell. Be sure to let us know your thoughts in the comments.
LG needs to pull it together to save the South Korean business, specifically within its handset sector. LG is the fourth largest business in South Korea, but has been experiencing a downturn and hopes to increase their investment by 12%, totally a record $18.2 billion.
LG seems to be placing all its chips into the smartphone and tablet divisions, as it did see large success after releasing its LG Optimus One Android smartphone, its biggest selling handset to date. This comes as great news to LG after reporting record losses in the 3rd quarter of 2010.
Here’s what they had to say;
The focus for 2011 will be bolstering our core businesses of smartphones, tablets, TVs and large-sized displays and also supporting new growth engines such as solar cell, new types of displays and small-sized display panels for smartphones and tablets,
It’s clear that LG plans on boosting their mobile technology, and its probably safe to say they’ll stick with Android as the OS to run its mobile technology after the successful launch of the Optimus One.
From the above Twitter post Cyanogen has managed to get Gingerbread running on his G2. Night and day, from what was to be expected from the modding community at the beginning, regarding this device. Hopefully the public will get a taste within the coming days.
And the least surprising of all the Gingerbread updated phones, the Nexus One. Team Douche member Chris Soyars has 2.3 up on his Nexus. The difference between the Nexus build and the G2 build? The Nexus build is available for those brave souls ready to flash. You know the speech: Not my fault etc.
Twinkler Software is in the Holiday spirit, and having a Christmas sale on their best selling apps. Now through Christmas day, you can pick up these apps on sale for 50% off. Here are some of those apps that you may want to purchase, for a great price:
WifFi Hero- Control the state of your WiFi connection automatically to preserve battery power, using cell tower location data
BeSmart- One button solution to quickly access your favorite apps, and acknowledge pending notification in an efficient and hassle free way
AddOnis- Gives your BlackBerry features such as LED vibration control for notifications, call blocking, call logging, enhanced keylock, and more
AddContactX- The easy and intuitive way to add new numbers to existing contacts, or create new contacts
You can pick up all of these apps for 50% off at the CrackBerry App Store. Sale is active now through Christmas day. You can check out all of Twinkler’s applications via the link below.
It’s not very often you get to enjoy a new piece of technology with your wider community. But our R/C car club for dads had just that pleasure the other week. We started the club as an excuse for us dads to get together on a Sunday event. We each purchased Carisma GT14 R/C car, and set about customizing them ready for our weekly meetings.
Carisma GT14 Club
It’s all gone well and we have about ten people, each with Carisma cars, in our tight-knit little radio-controlled community now. Then last week, one of the dads turned up with a new version of the car, the GT14 Mk 2.
Everyone gathered round to see the piece of kit that promised to offer a range of new racing setups for us. We ended up spending a good chunk of our time that evening talking through what we thought of the new design, which bits were better and which were worse. Here’s what we decided between us:
The carbon fiber Chassis and Top Deck have both been remolded on the Mk2 and eliminate the need for a motor vent hole. This should not only avoid burnt fingers that stray onto the hot metal, but also reduce ware and tear on pro motors. With these changes the chassis adopts a squarer shape, that produces a stiffer more positive driving experience.
More subtle changes to the chassis include the front and back digits that flank the wishbones and enable you to define the ride height and suspension movement with greater accuracy. Underneath a combination of alum key bolts and screws are used and look to offer more secure and flush fixing of the standard parts – such as the front and rear differential.
There are a range of other adjustments to tighten up the design all round. The battery housing for instance now only has the (universally preferred) rear placement – rather than the forward or back options of the MK1. The top chassis deck is also now in one piece to provide greater stability.
It was a little like someone bringing a new toy to school and everyone wanting a go in the playground. Only here we didn’t have to go in for lessons — it’s great being a grownup sometimes, isn’t it!
Carisma GT14 Mk2
What I most appreciated about all this was the community aspect of it though. So often the new technology that I find most exciting, like the Nintendo 3DS for instance, is something that my immediate friends don’t really “get.” I end up swooning over the tech specs and press releases on my own.
At the Carisma R/C club we were all on the same page and could talk in detail about what we thought of it. This sort of group experience is commonplace while you are growing up, but is quite rare for busy parents.
Where do you get to enthuse about your gadgets and tech with people face to face?
I for one welcome our Google overlords. I mean, let’s be real…they’re going to take over the world. Today, they came one step closer with the purchase of Phonetic Arts. This company specializes in software to give computers (typically in video games) the ability to generate natural, expressive speech.
It’s no secret that your Android phone can translate your speech to text remarkably well. And there certainly are plenty of apps out there that can give your phone the capability to speak to you (Vlingo, for example, has the ability to read your incoming texts or emails), but there are still issues. Not only is it not built-in to Android, but we’ve all heard that robotic, computer voice. According to Google’s blog, they are looking to improve voice output drastically, and that’s where the purchase of Phonetic Arts comes in. They’re increasing their investments in this issue, so we can look forward to big improvements on that front.
Sharp has been doing some interesting things with their lineup of Android phones, and while they may rely to an extent on gimmicks such as glasses-free 3D, their offerings thus far haven’t looked all that bad. For now, Japan is just about the only place you can get a piece of Android on a Sharp device, and the trend continues with the Galapagos line of tablets announced for the Land of the Rising Sun.
Two sizes were shown off, a 5.5-inch device with a resolution of 1024×600 for 39,000 yen ($473) and a 10.8-inch version with a resolution of 1266×800 at a price of 54,800 ten ($642). The prices might put these slightly out of reach for consumers looking for a more cost-friendly tablet, but we are interested to see what Sharp has to offer.
Plans for a US release aren’t know just yet, but Sharp has expressed interest in extending their Android offerings to the States, so we could see them eventually.
Police have closed East 20th Street between Chestnut and Blake streets while they investigate what appears to be a small, toy robot affixed to a footbridge near Coors Field. (RJ Sangosti, The Denver Post)
The news: Police in Denver rerouted rush hour traffic for hours and called in the bomb squad to handle a little toy robot.
The conversation at home:
“Kids, if we’ve told you once, we’ve told you a thousand times: Make sure you put your toy robot away.
“All right, very funny: Who cemented their toy robot to the foot of a bridge? Their super-menacing 8-inch-tall robot? You know how it scares the dog.
“Oh, I’ll make a federal case of it — I’ll call in the bomb squad . . . “
Hello December! With the first of every month, Google flexes its Android OS share muscles to show us where we are sitting as a whole. Our beloved OS muscle has shifted quite a bit in the last month.
If you are not privy to the reported numbers from November 1st, I will be glad to enlighten everyone.
Android 1.5 – 7.9%
Android 1.6 – 15.0%
Android 2.1 – 40.8%
Android 2.2 – 36.2%
As you can see, OS version 1.5 is still slowly on the decline but still holding in there. 1.6 moved down nearly 5%, with the most notable increase being Android 2.2 moving up 7.2% in the last month.
These numbers are looking much more appealing every single month. Soon we should see Android 1.5 fall off entirely. I fear 1.6 will still hold out for at least six more months due to upgrade time frames. Especially the G1 owners, I know most of you are just about up for your upgrade but may have a little time left.
Still though, the gaps are closing steadily every month. This is what we want to see. With Android 2.3, AKA Gingerbread, on the horizon and Honeycomb not too terribly far after that, we will be adding new slices to the pie just as we finally fade one out.
With technology jumping leaps and bounds it seems every week, I am fairly certain the pie chart we have grown to love will never be one single OS version. There really is no possible way to move the millions of devices out there to one particular version. The developers try to do their best with custom ROM’s and the carriers, but they do whatever they want.
Does anyone out there really believe we will ever diminish this pie to 1 or maybe 2 OS versions?
They are the opening band. I have yet to throw my panties on the stage – but when I do, they will be unique and geeky. My husband introduced me to the The Captain’s Wife’s Lament and Nun Fight a couple of years ago. When I heard these songs, by two guys who have obvious musical talent, I was an instant minion.
Recently, I had the opportunity to have an e-mail dialog with the musical duo. We discussed their musical roots and how they balance a hectic tour schedule with family life.
AppBrain, one of the more forward thinking apps for maintaining and installing Android applications pushed out their V5 update today, giving their users new functionalities to play with. A quote from their blog post about the release:
This major update offers a details page for every app. It loads very quickly after tapping an app within AppBrain, and allows you to view all interesting information before deciding to go to the market to download an app. It not only shows the familiar thumbs-up thumbs-down reviews from the website (and allows you to post your own!), but also has a tab with the related apps of an app as shown in the two screenshots on the side. Very useful if you’re shopping around for an app and want to know what other similar apps are out there!
The new app page also allows you to really easily share apps with friends directly from your phone. The share button lets you share the app you’re viewing through any sharing app that’s installed on your phone, for instance Facebook or Gmail.
What is interesting about this release is that AppBrain has also included their Fast Web Installer inside the app, instead of a separate install. Which is a smart move! However, this functionality is already broken because Google released an update to the Android Market which causes problems with this feature. AppBrain announced this on their blog as well, saying that they are aware of the issue, and while the Fast Web Installer is probably already irrelevant, they have created a “Fast Sync Widget” that will allow syncing right from your desktop.
Check out the update in the Android Market, if we hear anything further on the Fast Web Installer front, we will update.
According to an article at engadget, they have it on two reliable sources that HTC is working on their own app store for Android devices. We’ve seen this with carriers (Verizon, for example) and companies (like Amazon), but generally not from a manufacturer. The rumor comes hot on the heels of HTC saying they want to be more active in the software aspect of their devices, even though they already have HTC Sense on just about all of their handsets. The company also recently released htcsense.com cloud service for Desire HD and Desire Z handsets, and uses HTC Hub as an assistant for app discovery.
It is also possible that HTC is looking to bring this rumored service, is real, to more than just Android devices; they also make a good amount of Windows Mobile and Windows Phone 7 devices, so it wouldn’t surprise us too much to see something like an HTC Market for those devices as well.
What do you think? Should HTC look at making their own app store, or stick to what they do now? Be sure to let us know your opinions in the comments!
The brief piece on the movie – one working title is The Greatest Muppet Movie Ever Made, judging by some news coverage this summer — describes what sounds like a fun mix of new takes and old Jim Henson-style meta-fun. Take the new guy, Walter, for example: He’s obviously a Muppet in our world, but in his world, he’s a human, and he’s also a huge fan of “The Muppets.” (And yes, he’s toting what looks like an iPhone — I bet those felt fingers keep that screen shiny like you wouldn’t believe.)
Written by Jason Segel — Marshall on How I Met Your Mother, among other roles —and Forgetting Sarah Marshall director Nicholas Stoller, the next Muppet movie is being directed by Flight of the Conchords co-creator James Bobin, and it’s due for a Christmas 2011 release.
Apple overtakes Lenovo in income in China. This does not please Lenovo’s CEO.
I really enjoyed playing with the 
If you are not privy to the reported numbers from 
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