`wyldKard's

Gadget price insanity!

Source: makeuseof.com

It’s common knowledge that HTC is the hardware provider for the Google Nexus One, but new statements by Sony Ericsson’s president indicate that electronics maker Sony Ericsson may have been approached first by Google.

Engadget is reporting that Bert Nordberg told a Swedish publisher that “his company was asked to build the so-called Googlephone before HTC… and it turned down the opportunity.”

We dug up the article in question and it appears that the statements were made at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona. An English version of the article can be read via Google Translate.

Should the remarks prove to be legit, it’s interesting to note that Nordberg appears to stand by the company’s decision and points to branding as a mitigating factor. In light of mediocre Nexus One sales, he might be right. Although it’s hard to discount the fact that HTC received massive publicity for its role in the phone’s development, and its likely that the Google/HTC partnership will yield additional devices and opportunities for both companies in the years ahead.

Source: mashable.com

Google is trying to one-up Apple, showing off designs for a new tablet computer based on its Chrome operating system that would be a direct rival to the iPad.

Just weeks after launching its own iPhone competitor in the US, the Nexus One, Google might soon extend its competition with Apple further as it seeks to push its search and other products on to as many devices as possible.

Google’s user interface designer, Glen Murphy, published mock-ups of a Google tablet on the search giant’s Chromium.org website, along with a video of how users would interact with the device

Late last year Google announced Chrome OS, an operating system predominantly for small netbooks that would be based around the web browser, providing quick boot times and easy access to Google’s array of online services.

The first Chrome OS netbooks are due to arrive this year, but Google is now considering extending the platform to other devices including tablets, desktops and even big screen TVs.

Chrome OS is a separate project to Google’s Android platform for smartphones.

Google’s tablet video shows the user interacting with the multi-touch touchscreen in a similar way to the iPad, using similar gestures to resize and interact with windows and launch applications. The device would include a five- to 10-inch screen and an on-screen keyboard.

On his blog, Murphy published an image showing the full range of hand gestures that would be supported by the tablet.

Google chief executive officer Eric Schmidt was on the board of Apple until August last year, when he resigned citing a conflict of interest over its Android phone platform and Chrome OS.

Now, the companies are increasingly at each other’s throats.

Apple chief executive officer Steve Jobs reportedly told staff at a recent “Town Hall” meeting that Google was the one that began competing with Apple by entering the phone industry, labelling the company’s “Don’t be evil” corporate mantra “a load of crap”.

Earlier, Google released an unofficial, browser-based versionof its Google Voice app for the iPhone, which allows users to make cheap mobile calls using the internet. This effectively bypassed Apple, which had previously declined to allow Google Voice to be included in its App Store.

Microsoft has unsuccessfully tried to push tablet computers for the past decade, to no avail, perhaps because its designs were bulky and resembled regular laptops. The main difference was that the screens were touch-sensitive and could swivel to lie flat in a slate format.

But Microsoft also sees potential in the new iPad-style, multi-touch tablets, with some gadget sites late last year publishing images of a Microsoft “Courier” prototype. The images suggested it would include two touch screens that face each other in a book format.

Other manufacturers – including HP, Lenovo and Dell – are planning to launch tablet computers based on the Windows 7, Linux and Google Android operating systems.

TechCrunch reported today that, according to anonymous sources, Apple is working on a larger version of the iPad that would function more like a Mac than an iPhone.

Gartner analyst Robin Simpson said other companies including Google would have trouble competing with Apple’s iPad because Apple had already developed a strong ecosystem around its products, allowing users to buy content from iTunes with one click.

“You can make great hardware, you can have a fantastic, easy-to-use operating system, but to make it commercially successful I think you need an ecosystem that encourages lots and lots of independent third party development and makes it really easy for users to discover content and buy content,” Simpson said in a phone interview.

“It’s easy to do hardware, it’s really hard to create an ecosystem and Apple’s got a head-start on everybody because they’ve been doing this for four to five years, based around iTunes.”

Google would not say when or if it would start selling a tablet, saying, “Chrome OS is still in development and we are constantly experimenting with various user interfaces to determine what designs would produce the best user experience.”

The tablet models would compete heavily with netbooks, which are small, lightweight laptops designed for accessing the web, editing documents or working on email while on the go.

To differentiate netbooks from the tablet competitors, PC makers are adding significantly more grunt to their netbook offerings, to such an extent that it’s difficult to describe them as netbooks.

Dell today launched its Alienware M11x, which is an ultra-portable laptop with an 11-inch screen but includes a top-of-the-line graphics chip and processor. Dell described the machine as “the fastest sub-12 inch laptop in the universe”.

Source: smh.com.au

Tomorrow is a big day. Apple will be revealing a brand new product to the masses. While we don’t know what it will be called, we’re quite certain Jobs will be unveiling the much-anticipated Apple Tablet. While the Apple Tablet may very well revolutionize the tablet industry–as their previous products have done many times before–it wouldn’t be where it is without those that came before it. Below you will find a list of what we believe to be the top slates.

Apple MessagePad/The Newton:
The Apple MessagePad was the first powerful PDA device. Introduced in 1993, the MessagePad ran on the Newton OS and featured handwriting recognition software which would learn a user’s natural handwriting. The original version only supported portrait viewing, but future iterations allowed the screen to be rotated and viewed in landscape mode as well. The device used Four AAA batteries, which hampered battery life. It wasn’t until Apple switched to the use of AA batteries that the Newton could be used for extended periods of time. Perhaps the biggest shortfall of the Newton was the handwriting software’s learning curve. It took the software anywhere from two weeks to two months to learn a user’s handwriting style. This delay, coupled with the lack of desktop connectivity for most of the lines life-time, forced Apple to abandon the project in 1998.

Panasonic Toughbook 08:
The Panasonic Toughbook 08 was a tablet built for abuse. The magnesium alloy case is purportedly 20 times stronger than that of standard plastics used in tablet and laptop construction. The Toughbook 08 comes with a 10.4 inch LED touchscreen and only weighs 2.6 pounds. The device comes with wifi, bluetooth and an ethernet slot. This tablet has a SD expansion slot, which is necessary given its paltry 64MB of RAM. Turns out that while consumers want a rugged and sturdy alternative, aesthetically unpleasing products such as the Toughbook 08 will struggle. Who would have thought? As such, the Panasonic Toughbook 08 is no longer in production.

Motion M1200:
Long before the Apple iSlate (or iPad, or whatever they’ll be calling it) was even a thought in our minds, there was the Motion M1200. The first “slate,” the M1200 sported a massive 12.1 inch display, giving it a competitive advantage over similar tablets which used the smaller 10.4 inch display. Although built with a magnesium alloy chassis, the Motion M1200 was not designed to take a beating like the ToughBooks. The M1200 came with an 833 MHz mobile Pentium 3 processor, 128 to 512 MB of RAM, and either a 20, 40, or 60 GB hard drive. The advertised price of this tablet was $2,200 in 2002, which undoubtedly had something to do with the low adoption rate.

Fujitsu Stylistic ST5010:
One of the first slates to be produced by a big manufacturer was the Fujitsu Stylistic ST5010. Taking a page from Motion’s book, the Fujitsu Stylistic ST5010 came with a huge 12.1 inch screen. Weighing in at 3.4 pounds, the tablet was larger than most, but still light enough for extensive travel; however the four hour battery life was not conducive to this end. Boasting a 1 GHz Pentium M processor, the ST5010 was faster than most of its competitors in the space. Unfortunately, the larger screen led to smaller buttons which were hard to push. The ST5010 was also mysteriously missing a four-way navigation pad which made navigation quite a pain.

Samsung Q1 Ultra:
The Samsung Q1 was one of the first projects built under Microsoft’s Origami project. The Q1 can boot directly into Windows XP or AVS mode. With AVS mode, the Q1 boots to a media player with no Windows Explorer interface. The Q1 Ultra is extremely lightweight, coming in at just over 1.7 pounds. The Intel Celeron M ULV chip running at 900 MHz was supposed to help with battery life, but the device could still only muster 3 hours. The 7 inch touchscreen was smaller than the standard we became accustomed to, and given its poor performance and short battery life, the Q1 Ultra was not well-received.

iPod Touch:
The iPod Touch was introduced to the masses in September of 2007. It comes with a 3.5 inch multi-touch display, and weighs only 4.2 ounces. The battery life in the first generation is sufficient, with up to 22 hours for audio, and 5 for video. Subsequent versions have improved battery life. It was the first of the iPod line to be able to access the iTunes store as well as Apple’s App Store, which greatly increased the number of third-party applications being offered to the platform. While not marketed as a slate, the iPod Touch, has all the functionality of its predecessors, along with the addition of multi-touch. The success of the iPod Touch has been prolific, with over 20 million sold in its first two years.

Lenovo U1:
The Lenovo U1 is a netbook with a removable tablet. When docked, the U1 takes advantage of an Intel processor and runs Windows 7. However, when the tablet is removed, the U1 utilizes the 1 GHz Snapdragon processor and runs a Linux distro. While docked, the netbook weighs 3.8 pounds, but when removed, weighs only 1.6. The screen is 11.6 inches and supports multi-touch. While not in production yet, this hybrid was revealed at CES 2010 and has potential to disrupt the market. It will be interesting to see how the product handles being synced to the dock while running programs.

Compaq iPAQ:
The Compaq iPAQ, introduced in 2000, was another advanced PDA device. It took advantage of a Windows interface which gave it multimedia functionality over its Palm rivals. Consumers were able to buy “sleeves” which added functionality; such as GPS, wireless networking, and extra batteries. The first model ran at 200 MHz, and had 64MB of RAM, while later versions had as much as 128 MB of RAM and a 624 MHz processor. The iPAQ line have undergone major revamps since HP’s acquisition of Compaq and are no longer being branded as the iPAQ. Instead, HP has decided to call the future iterations Personal Navigation Devices and Travel Companions. This is a good way to differentiate themselves from their competitor, since calling a product the i”Name” makes one think of something Apple-related.

Microsoft Surface:
The Microsoft Surface is the only non-portable slate on the list. It has an incredible 30 inch multi-touch screen, but only has 2 GB of RAM, a 250 GB hard drive, and a 2.13 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo processor. The Surface is able to recognize different objects as well as register multiple users, which is where this product excels. We have one of these in our TechCrunch office and the multi-user recognition makes for great air hockey games, but it gets more use as a coffee table than anything else. This is definitely not made for personal use, but larger organizations such as hospitals could benefit from this technology.

iSlate/iPad/Apple Tablet:
The hype over the product has caused such a media frenzy that one can’t go to any news site without seeing the tablet mentioned in some form or another. No no one outside of Apple knows what the tablet will be packing with regards to specs, but we do have our thoughts on some groundbreaking gesturing techniques. Even if the Apple Tablet disappoints, it will go down in history as one of the most groundbreaking slates created, simply because of the all the buzz surrounding the product.

Source: CrunchGear

Start! PRESS START!!!!

Source: makeuseof.com

Source: GeekDad

Want to know which products are going to be making the biggest waves in 2010? Well, here are my picks for the hottest innovations to watch. A few of them such as Kayak have been playing in the small-time for a while but are expected to make a big push next year. Others such as iTunes TV are only rumors so far, but if true, will make big news. While Foursquare and Eventbrite are relatively well known, Square is just starting out. And while I think most of my choices will live up to their hype, a few of them will certainly prove me wrong. So without further ado, here they are — in no particular order:

Evernote
First up is Evernote, which lets you record almost any type of data and recall it when you need it. It’s a prime example of how to make best use of different platforms such as web, mobile, and desktop. When I use my work laptop, I use the Evernote web app. When I’m home, I use its app developed for Mac. When I’m on the go, I use its Android or iPhone app. They all sync seamlessly. On top of that, Evernote continues to innovate — it understands and indexes several different formats, integrates with eye-fi to let you send pictures to your Evernote account wirelessly, and allows you to remember any links using Twitter. Evernote has the potential to become your business card reader, your bookmarks repository, and eventually your central storage and perhaps even a web based productivity suite.

Eventbrite
Ticketmaster and Stubhub target the high end of the online ticket sales market. Stubhub, for example, targets events such as concerts, sports, and broadway shows. Eventbrite, on the other hand, has found a largely untapped market — smaller events. For example, if you want to organize a fundraiser, you could sell tickets using Eventbrite. It has slowly but steadily picked up momentum and has sold more than $150 million in tickets to date. If you search for “Eventbrite” on VentureBeat, most of the results are conference and event announcements selling tickets through EventBrite.

Eventbrite’s biggest challenge will be to scale effectively in essentially a volume market. It relies on partnerships with several small event organizers across several sectors rather than focusing on a few verticals the way Ticketmaster and Stubhub do. So far it has targeted event organizers, but if it can use itsrecent funding to tap into end users effectively, it could expand even further. For example, it can serve as an events directory and a destination for end users to find out more about events happening in their neighborhood.

Square
When Diners Club issued the first credit card a few decades ago, it distributed free cards to its members. It then approached its participating restaurants and told them that they had to accept Diners cards because all of its members had them. It was a brute force way to solve the chicken and egg problem. The credit card industry has thrived since then. Paypal, which initially was seen as a possible alternative to credit cards, has struggled to expand beyond eBay users. But Square has not only embraced credit cards from get go but has also made them more accessible to long tail — users who can’t afford to buy a credit card machine.

While Paypal requires both parties in a transaction to have a Paypal account, Square only needs one party – the seller – to have the Square device, a small, free device that attaches to anything such as a cell phone with an audio jack. Therefore, it does not face the chicken and egg problem Paypal does. Square is tapping into a huge market, which has largely relied on ad hoc methods of payments so far (cash, checks).

Foursquare
Foursquare, a location-based social network, has largely tech savvy and gadget loving following. But the same was said about Twitter a few years ago. Today even Larry King and Oprah Winfrey are frequent users. And while Twitter had no clear business model when it started out, location-based services have an opportunity to strike money-making partnerships with businesses. As location finding technology becomes ubiquitous and data consumption, which has sky-rocketed since the iPhone and then Android-based phones came out, continues its upward climb as all phones become smart, location based services will become popular.

The location-based services market is very competitive, with startups such as Gowalla and Loopt as well as heavyweights such as Facebook (assuming Facebook turns on location features), all marking their territory. But Loopt has focused more on scale than innovation, and though scale is critical in a social network, when location technology becomes a commodity, Loopt’s scale won’t be such a big differentiator anymore. Facebook is already struggling with scale problems (ever noticed how long it takes to browse through or upload pictures?), and concerns about privacy would complicate its expansion into a location-based service, where users require much more privacy and exclusivity. So Foursquare’s game mechanics and planned business partnerships would help it lead in this market.

iTunes TV
Just the way voice over IP solutions such as Skype are taking away voice revenue from telcos, internet TV is vying to get a large piece of the cable TV audience. It faces several challenges, including ease of use, jittery speed, and reluctance among content providers to move content online due to fear of privacy and loss of ad revenue.

This is where iTunes TV, a rumored internet TV service from Apple, could make a difference. It’s likely to do for TV what iPod did for music industry. Apple, as usual, will bundle the service with its hardware to sell more Apple TVs. In the meantime, better broadband speeds and dedicated hardware will make the internet-TV watching experience comparable to TV quality on cable. Key, however, will be Apple’s ability to get content producers on board.

Boxee
Speaking of TV, Boxee — software that lets you watch media from the internet or your local hard disk — announced earlier this month that it will sell a set-top box. Like Foursquare, Boxee’s following is generally more tech savvy (than that of competitor Roku for example), but its biggest problem might be that much of its applications are written by third parties rather than content producers themselves. However, I think it is poised for success for two reasons: First, devices on which TV can be seen will proliferate, and when they do, Boxee can potentially expand into not just your home TV, but also cell phone, mobile TV, and car TV. Second, all individual set-top boxes (Roku, Popcorn) are vested more in their hardware than in their software, where Boxee is primarily a software solution. If Boxee can create a compelling solution — which it has done for PC and Macs for now — for other platforms, and strike partnerships with content producers and hardware vendors, it can become the central platform for the internet TV.

Kayak
Kayak, a travel search engine, has done quite well despite lack of a TV marketing campaign so far (it just launched such a campaign) and has grown primarily through search engine marketing and word of mouth. It’s rumored to be going public anytime soon, and even if it doesn’t, it’s a good target for acquisition by Google. Here’s why:

Bing continues to pose a viable threat to Google’s dominance through its recent deal with Yahoo, free Wi-Fi, and a rumored deal with News Corp to block Google from getting access to premium news content such as Wall Street Journal. Bing touts itself as a “decision engine,” which is mostly a marketing gimmick, but has some weight behind it. When you search for SFO to LAX for example, you’ll see ticket fares from Farecast — a travel search engine that Microsoft acquired and integrated with Bing. On Google, however, you’ll see results from online travel agencies such as Expedia as well as travel search engines such as Kayak. So, while on Bing, ticket buyers would essentially stay on a Microsoft property, on Google the same buyers would move on to a new site such as Kayak. Next time they want to search for flights, they would skip Google and go to Kayak directly. This results in loss of traffic for Google, and that’s why Google is likely to buy Kayak.

HTC
HTC, a Taiwanese cell phone manufacturer, has quietly become the fourth largest smartphone manufacturer in the world. So far it has stayed low profile in order to woo carriers and software vendors such as Google. But now it has finally gained enough scale to start marketing directly to consumers thus become more of a consumer brand. It has also been the prime manufacturer of Android phones so far. Expect HTC to make even bigger inroads in the smartphone market next year.

Trends to watch
Finally, there are a few general trends to keep your eye on in the coming year.

E-readers and tablets have finally caught on, thanks to E Ink technology and Amazon’s marketing muscle behind Kindle. Other factors such as touch technology, cheaper components, powerful cell operating systems, and abundance of e-books also helped. And while there are several contenders in the e-readers market, there’s a new breed of e-readers and tablets coming up that will revolutionize the way we think of e-books; blur the boundaries between magazines, books, and news; and trigger a new investment in content publishing and “e advertising”. This in turn will spawn a new breed of companies, trying to take advantage of this relatively new phenomenon.

Behind the scenes will be startups like Pixel Qi, which hopes it can use LCD to enable a dual mode operation, which will allow readers to switch between a “Kindle like” black and white reading mode and a more colorful interactive mode. Making the headlines here would be Apple’s rumored tablet and a tabletbeing sponsored by Condé Nast, Hearst, Meredith, News Corporation and Time Inc in a project dubbed a“Hulu for Print” by The Economist.

If there was any doubt that social gaming is on the rise, the recent purchase of Playfish by Electronic Arts would assuage it. EA sees social gaming as a disruptive technology. As social gaming gets bigger, so will the virtual economy — which is estimated at $5B and yet has to take off in the US. While social gamings companies such as Zynga and Playdom would certainly benefit, Twofish, the engine behind micro transactions would be a big winner as well.

Google’s Android despite its initial success and momentum will face a big test in 2010. So far it has continued to grow in popularity despite complaints by several developers that Android is getting fragmented — in other words, developers have to make sure their software runs on all Android devices, a pain point that Sun’s Java failed to address earlier. But with tons of Android devices launching next year, Google will have to control the process or let its promise of “write once run everywhere” slip. It will also see a formidable competitor in Windows Mobile 7, despite the fact that several analysts have written Microsoft’s Windows Mobile off.

Google declared at Mobilebeat conference last year that app stores were dead, and yet continues strong integration of software with its Android operating system. But it it will be a while before web apps really become widespread, and in the meanwhile, hybrid apps — which allow seamless switching and synching between web and desktop, such as Evernote will thrive.

Source: venturebeat.com

Everyone is clamoring about tablets these days—ourselves included—so it’s not too surprising that Google and HTC are set to join the fray. They are reportedly working together on a Chrome OS Google Tablet.

Smarthouse, an Australian publication, reports that HTC and Google have been collaborating “for the past 18 months” and have produced “several working models of a touch tablet,” including one outfitted with Google’s Chrome OS. We wrote why a Google Tablet would be a good idea last month, and with the Apple Tablet discussion reaching a fever pitch, it’s harder and harder to get excited about a Chrome OS netbook from Google.

Having collaborated on the Nexus One, a smart phone that impressed us with its design as well as its hardware, HTC and Google partnering on a tablet seems like a promising prospect. But will it “compete head on” with Apple’s tablet as Smarthouse claims? Probably not.

From what we know, it seems like Apple is putting as much effort into their tablet’s content as they are into the gadget itself. We’ve written extensively on how an Apple tablet could redefine newspapers, textbooks, and magazines. In the last case, we’ve already salivated,more than once, over concepts for how magazines might evolve in a multi-touch future. Add that to Apple’s recent acquisition of Lala, a move that likely points to a cloud-based future for iTunes, and the reports that Apple is trying to secure TV show subscription packages for the iTunes store. Admittedly, not a whole lot is certain about Apple’s tablet. But you start looking at all of those pieces and how they might fit together around one device, you can easily envision a gadget that is focused on streaming the stuff you read, the stuff you listen to, and the stuff you watch.

It’s hard to foresee a future in which a Google Tablet tries to go head to head with Apple on the content level. That’s not to say, however, that there aren’t some compelling things that could be offered by a Google tablet. As the launch of Google’s Chrome OS made clear, they’re looking toward a future with a multitude of devices that can access the Internet quickly, cleanly, and cheaply. A Google Tablet could be just the thing to realize all of those goals. When we tried out the JooJoo tablet, we saw how a well-designed tablet for consuming web content could provide an engaging experience. A Chrome OS tablet by Google would likely work the same way, keeping typing to a minimum and offering a literal hands-on web surfing experience. [Smarthouse via Business Insider]

Source: Gizmodo

Holidays are often family time, so know when is it appropriate to use your iPhone

Source: gizmodo

Yummy USB! Tech savvy ants would want a piece of this too!