Learn Something New
March 9th, 2010
Google Buzz Could Have Dominated Location
March 9th, 2010(And Snuck Up On Facebook And Twitter.)
Tomorrow it will be exactly one month since the launch of Google Buzz. And a lot of people are still complaining: it’s a mess. Normally, that’s not too big of a deal — after all, a lot of services are a mess — but Buzz has a lot of potential. But again, it’s been a month. Will ever reach that potential. Would it have helped it it had been introduced as something entirely different?
Despite its many annoyances, I’ve been using Buzz regularly over the past month. The one thing I keep coming back to is that Buzz on the iPhone and Android is pretty impressive. Specifically, the location functionality as run through the mobile web is impressive. In fact, that’s what I think Buzz should have started out as.
Yes, I know Google already has a location-based service: Latitude. But let’s be honest: no one uses Latitude. Or if they do, they likely don’t even realize they’re using it because it’s just turned on in the background. And that’s precisely why Latitude doesn’t work.
People understand the concept of places, not coordinates. And Google, thanks to its Search and Maps businesses, happens to have databases of more places than probably any other company out there. With Buzz, they’re finally using it.
As a location-based app, Google would have likely been instantaneously bigger than all of its rivals. This is the key reason people suggest that when Facebook enters the location game, it will wipe out the other players — it’s the huge built-in user base.
Then the next step could have been to more directly emphasize the concept of sharing. That would have been to opposite approach of Twitter, which first was all about sharing, and more recently has added the location layer (which Facebook is also likely to do at some point this year). But that makes sense for Google, since the social elements have been their weak point and no one yet has a huge stranglehold over the location space.
Instead, right now, Buzz is oddly split between this sharing service within Gmail and this location-based service that exists on the mobile web.
Oh well. Time to go mute some more posts on the Buzz we’re stuck with.
HP Slate demoed
March 9th, 2010Features Flash support with possible hardware acceleration
HP Slate , what is supposed to be the most probably competitor to Apple’s iPad was demoed here today at a rock concert, showing off Flash capability and running on Windows 7. We had seen it first when Steve Ballmer was waving it around at CES. Now a cool video has come out from Adobe showing off its Flash-compatibility as well as other features.
The iPad has received a lot of criticism for lacking Flash support, multitasking support, and a proper operating system in general. HP hopes to pull some of the disgruntled fans by offering a full PC running Windows 7, in the tablet form factor. And so, yes, it supports multitasking, and it can be seen playing Flash videos, running AIR applications and running casual Flash games.
It has an on-screen keyboard that looks like a slightly modified version of the default Windows-7 keyboard. One interesting tit-bit is that Flash is supposedly hardware accelerated in the HP Slate. Its possible that it is an Atom+Broadcom Crystal HD Accelerator GPU but of course it can be something else entirely.
Apple iPad Add Launched
March 9th, 2010Notice how easy it is to hold?
Thoughts??
Apple iPad to launch 3rd April
March 8th, 2010
We knew it was coming out in April, or quarter 2, but we’ve finally got an on-the-shelves date from Apple for their iPad or Jesus gadget in the States. Hitting US shops on April 3, It’s slightly earlier than expected.
The UK will be “a few weeks later” according to Steve Jobs, so that could be as early the 15th. Still nothing definite on the UK price, but as stated at the launch back in January: the Wi-Fi models will retail for $US499 for 16GB, $US599 for 32GB and $US699 for 64GB, with the 3G models to sell for $US629 for 16GB, $US729 for 32GB and $US829 for 64GB.
Americans will be able to pre-order both the Wi-Fi and 3G models from Apple’s online store starting from next week, March 12, but there is no pre-ordering as yet for the rest of the world.
Sony to Launch Challengers to iPad, iPhone
March 8th, 2010Sources have told the Wall Street Journal that Sony is planning on making a challenger to Apple’s iPad that will have all the capabilities of a netbook, a Sony Reader and a PSP, the company’s handheld gaming device.
At a Sony news conference in Tokyo, Sony’s CFO Nobuyuki Oneda didn’t provide any details but expressed the company’s desire to compete against Apple’s newest gadget, due in stores next month.
“That is a market we are also very interested in. We are confident we have the skills to create a [great] product,” said Oneda. “Time-wise, we are a little behind the iPad but it’s a space we would like to be an active player in.”
The WSJ also reported Sony is making a new smartphone – containing Sony Ericsson mobile technology and capable of playing PSP games – to compete against the iPhone. Both devices are expected to work with Sony Online Services, an online store due to launch in March and sell music, movies, books, and other downloadable applications for mobile products.
The iPad challenger and the new smartphone are expected to launch sometime in 2010, but no details about specs, price or design have been released.
Sony has tried to get into the phone/gaming gadget arena in the past. A patent was filed in 2006 for a device that looked like a PSP on one side and a smartphone on the other, but such a device has never hit the market.
Apple sold 8.7 million iPhones in the last three months of 2009.
Introducing the iPad
March 8th, 2010Apple has unveiled it’s newest technological creation this week that is sure to be in the hands of every Mac lover within moments of its availability.
The new device fills the void between the iPhone and laptop, with the design of the iPhone, but the functionality of a handheld computer. Insiders at the demonstration tweeted out the stats about the new device and quoted CEO Steve Jobs as he explained all it’s features.
The 9.7 inch screen device will be available in 16GB and 64 GB versions, making it ideal to watch video, read newspapers and browse photos on. The more “intimate” device, as Jobs describes it, is a “dream” to type on with full-size touch-screen keyboard, similar to the iPhone interface. The Apple iPad will have 10 hours of battery life and also have Wi-Fi capability, but no mobile contract announced as of yet.
Those fans of their beloved Apps will be happy to know that all their existing Apps are easily transferable to the iPad and many more exciting ones are on the way to be fully enjoyed on the bigger screen. And for e-readers, The New York Times has already signed on with Apple to create exclusive content, including articles with a newspaper look and play-in-page video.
They have also announced the iBook Store, a digital bookstore for the new Apple iPad, which has already partnered with five major book publishers: Penguin, Macmillan, Simon & Schuster, Harper Collins and Hachette.
This thing is going to be HUGE!
Chile, Taiwan, Haiti, Japan, Earthquake!!
March 5th, 2010Chile, Taiwan, Haiti, and Japan have all experienced more than 6 earthquakes in the last week, with Haiti experiencing a major aftershock after the first 7.0 Haiti Earthquake.
Whatever is going on, it’s now clear to many that the World is experiencing large earthquakes at a greater rate
The Taiwan Earthquake centered in Kaohsiung that hit on 4 March 2010 measured 6.4 on the Richer Scale. The earthquake occured 3.1 miles below ground, which disrupted train services and sent pedestrians running into the streets.
As of this writing, there’s no claim that the Taiwan Earthquake is related to the giant 8.8 Chile Earthquake or for that matter the quakes in Haiti and Japan. But one element of evidence is obvious and that’s the sheer timing of all of these great quakes.
Something is going on?
Apple with a fight on its hands? Appsolutely
March 5th, 2010THE battle to dominate the mobile phone world is heating up between Apple, Microsoft and Google after the latter two showed new signs they are ready for the fight to capture market share.
Apple has enjoyed an unfettered reign at the top of the smartphone chain since launching its popular touchscreen iPhone in 2007, but new approaches from both Microsoft and Google to capture the ballooning mobile market threaten its rule.
Both Microsoft and Google laid their claims to the mobile throne at last month’s Mobile World Congress, with the software giant unveiling a new and much improved mobile operating system, and with Google proclaiming that it was now a “mobile first” business.
Microsoft’s new Windows Phone 7 is a radical departure from its lacklustre predecessor. Built from the ground up, the new operating system forgoes the cluttered and buggy nature of Windows Mobile 6, instead focusing on a simple layout that has social networking, web and application integration at its core — both Microsoft’s Office, its search platform Bing and its online gaming service Xbox Live will be built into the operating system.
The new intuitive interface features large, easily recognisable buttons to navigate around the platform, but for data-hungry users who have grown accustomed to the new world of applications opened up by Apple’s iPhone it may not be enough to sway their allegiance.
Applications have become a major selling point for mobile phones, and Microsoft faces a challenge in catching up with the 150,000 available apps on the iPhone. Google on the other hand is faring much better in the app world and it has the bonus of an ace up its sleeve that not even Apple can contend with — openness.
By basing its operating system on open source software, Google has removed the barriers that lock out aspiring developers from getting their apps and features on to closed operating systems such as Apple’s and Microsoft’s. In essence it gives Android a bigger opportunity to leverage the developer community responsible for creating apps.
The openness of Android’s operating system has led to some interesting and innovative breakthroughs in the apps market. This week Google unveiled a new application which can translate pictures of foreign languages by using optical character recognition. The approach is working for Google and Android is now being used on 26 phone models, and 60,000 phones using Android are sold every day, the company says.
The momentum keeps gathering behind Google and its Android platform. At Mobile World Congress dozens of handset makers — including Samsung, Sony Ericsson and HTC — showed off devices that run the open operating system.
Telstra announced at the conference that it would soon be stocking HTC’s Desire handset which runs on Google Android.
“We’re very excited about our first foray into Android,” Telstra’s mobile products boss Ross Fielding said.
Google assists Chile with Person Finder
March 5th, 2010In a move to assist those affected by the recent 8.8 magnitude earthquake in Chile, search giant Google has launched Google Person Finder, which allows people to search through potentially useful information regarding lost relatives and friends.
According to Google, it has already amassed almost 36,000 individual records, which are also created by site visitors thanks to an information input option.
While holding the potential to be an extremely useful tool in this time of crisis, thanks to both Google’s global popularity and that it can be embedded on third-party sites, those seeking information should be aware that all the data on Person Finder “will be available to the public and viewable and usable by anyone.”
Google has also said that it does not review or verify the accuracy of submitted data regarding individual people.
Other avenues of possible assistance offered up by Google include a crisis response page that points info-seeking Americans in the direction of the U.S. State Department.
Google’s page also contains a list of reputable charitable organisations presently collecting financial aid to help support Chile in its time of need.