MobileCrunch |  |
- Report: Japanese Mobile Carrier SoftBank To Lose iPhone Monopoly To KDDI
- Gowalla 4.0, Their Bold Revamp Towards Travel And Stories Goes Live
- Nvidia Reveals Kal-El’s Secret Fifth Core For Ultra-Low-Power Tasks
- Google Says Mobile Optimized Sites Will Factor Into Landing Page Quality And Perform Better In AdWords
- RIM’s Stock Price Tumbles To A New Five Year Low
- Wyse Releases New Version Of Cloud Storage App PocketCloud
- Microsoft: Mango Will Roll Out “In The Next Week Or Two”
- GroupMe Co-Founder: GroupMe Won’t Be My Last Startup
- Verizon CEO: A Third Mobile Platform Will Emerge In The Next 12 Months
- AT&T’s Galaxy S II Will Launch On October 2 For $199.99
- A Look At Who’s Winning The Global Internet Speed Race [Infographic]
- Microsoft And Nokia Release Windows Phone Porting Guides For Symbian Developers
| Report: Japanese Mobile Carrier SoftBank To Lose iPhone Monopoly To KDDI Posted: 22 Sep 2011 04:56 AM PDT  It happened in the US a few months ago, and now something similar is about to happen in Japan, too: in one of Apple’s biggest markets, mobile carrier SoftBank is reportedly about to lose its exclusive domestic distribution rights for the iPhone and has to share the market with competitor KDDI. Nikkei Business Online claims it has learned that KDDI au, Japan’s second biggest mobile carrier with 33 million customers, will provide the iPhone 5 starting next year. If the rumored roll-out of the phone next month will become reality in Japan, too, this means that SoftBank has a few months before its closest competitor can start tapping into their most important segment. SoftBank has been Apple’s partner in Japan since August 2008 (when the iPhone 3G made its debut in Japan) and is also the exclusive provider of the iPad in this country. Gartner estimates that Apple, via SoftBank, has sold 7.5 million iPhones so far in Japan. Nikkei Business also says the iPhone 5 will support the CDMA standard. Japan’s biggest mobile carrier NTT Docomo, long rumored to be interested in distributing the handset as well, will apparently be left out. Neither Apple nor KDDI have confirmed the Nikkei Business report so far.
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| Gowalla 4.0, Their Bold Revamp Towards Travel And Stories Goes Live Posted: 22 Sep 2011 12:49 AM PDT  A couple weeks ago during TechCrunch Disrupt, Gowalla co-founder and CEO Josh Williams took the stage to preview the latest version of his service. And while it is technically called Gowalla 4.0, as Williams showed, it’s really a total revamp away from the check-in space and towards the travel and location-based story space. But as good as Williams and myself may have been at describing it, you should really try it out for yourself. And now you can. The Gowalla 4.0 apps for iOS and Android have just gone live in their respective stores. The website has also been completely revamped to focus on the new details of the service. “So I said to myself: Self, let’s launch this thing on Thursday, Sep 22. Because no one else will be doing anything interesting on that day,” Williams joked earlier on Twitter. He’s of course referring to the massive conference about to take place during which the largest social network in the world is supposed to unveil some “game-changing” stuff. The idea is to release bad news today in the hope that it’s buried, not good news. But the truth is that Gowalla has been pushing to get the new product out the door. And now here it is. Update: Williams has more to say in his own post. Gowalla is a mobile and web service that gives people around the world a new way to communicate and express themselves through the everyday places and extraordinary settings they enjoy. People can capture and share their spot in the world with friends and family, while discovering new places, events and trips as they go. Gowalla offers businesses, campaigns, and organizations the unique opportunity to reward loyalty, reach new consumers, and to create memorable experiences. Based in Austin, Texas, Gowalla was...
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| Nvidia Reveals Kal-El’s Secret Fifth Core For Ultra-Low-Power Tasks Posted: 21 Sep 2011 04:19 PM PDT  There has been a lot of whispering about Nvidia’s next-generation Tegra chip, code-named Kal-El (Superman’s Kryptonian name, for the uninitiated), since it was first detailed on a roadmap back in Februrary. But it hasn’t shown up quite yet in any actual handsets or tablets, though we’re told it has been adopted by the majors and will have its debut soon. Nvidia today released some new information about the SoC that confirms Tegra’s status as the brand to beat in the mobile computing world. Turns out it’s not quad-core, it’s penta-core. And the “companion core” is designed to take over while all the others go to sleep. As you have probably suspected, load balancing and optimizing processor use is important to the battery life of many devices. The screen is usually a bigger draw, but with demand for CPU- and GPU-intensive content rising, the portion of a battery used for that processing is as well. But when you’re not playing games or watching HD movies on your phone, those high-power cores don’t operate as efficiently as one designed for low-power, low-priority tasks. So Nvidia put another one on the die, a low-power optimized core, that takes over for mundane things like notification monitoring while the phone is inactive, low-bandwidth stuff like e-reading, and so on. Nvidia explains it all in this handy diagram, though be on the watch for self-congratulatory jargon (“console-class gaming” isn’t an industry standard term): It’s a bit like having a city car and a hot rod in your garage. You don’t want to drive your Aston Martin in bumper-to-bumper traffic. That’s why you have a Civic too, or perhaps a Leaf. Same here. Why use ten times the CPU power necessary to perform a simple task? You can read the rest in Nvidia’s whitepaper (PDF), but take it with a grain of salt, because TI might have some tricks up its sleeve, and even Intel might be creeping up.
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| Posted: 21 Sep 2011 03:00 PM PDT  Google is announcing today that websites that are optimized for mobile will now factor into ad quality. The company says that last year it began to limit ad serving on smartphone devices if they pointed to landing pages with Flash-heavy content, in order to improve the experience for users. Now the search giant will be considering the mobile optimization of a website as a new factor of mobile ads quality for all AdWords campaigns that are driving mobile traffic. As a result of this change, ads that have mobile optimized landing pages will perform better in AdWords and drive more traffic. The core guidelines for landing page quality apply across devices (on desktop and on mobile) but this consideration will only affect AdWords on mobile devices. For background, Google’s landing page quality for mobile sites factors in site navigability, simple layout, content prioritization, mobile features, touch features, minimal flash, landing page load time. Landing page quality is one of several factors that determine an advertiser’s keywords’ Quality Scores. As Google says, a poor mobile web experience can negatively shape a consumer's opinion of a brand or company and make it hard for them to engage or make a purchase. In fact, 61% of users are unlikely to return to a website that they had trouble accessing from their phone. Unsurprisingly, Google is pushing its own mobile site creator, through Google Sites, on publishers and site owners who want to create a simple mobile website. Considering the holiday shopping season is getting closer, retailers may want to be sure their sites fit into Google’s landing page guidelines. Certainly, this year more than ever, holiday shoppers will be using their mobile phones for search and purchasing.
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| RIM’s Stock Price Tumbles To A New Five Year Low Posted: 21 Sep 2011 02:29 PM PDT  RIM’s stock took a bit of a tumble after the release of their underwhelming Q2 earnings report last week, and it looks as though it won’t stop dropping anytime soon. Before the market closed for the day, RIM share prices continued to inch downward until it reached (at time of writing) $21.52: RIM’s lowest in five years. Before this, the RIM’s previous low occurred this past August, when their stock price dipped to $21.60/share. It’s clear that consumer and shareholder confidence in RIM is slipping, thanks in large part to their company’s disappointing financials. Their recent quarterly earnings report indicated unit sales were down across the board: they sold nearly 3 million fewer BlackBerrys in this quarter than the last, and PlayBook sales dropped from 500,000 in Q1 to a comparatively scant 200,000. While the company was bullish on their recent launch of 7 new BlackBerrys, their promising sales seem to have done nothing to buoy RIM’s stock performance. RIM is reportedly going to cut PlayBook prices in order to staunch the bleeding, but it’s looking more and more like their hopes are pinned on QNX to pull them through. RIM is placing a lot of faith in the new OS, but some are already saying it’s too little too late. By the time the first QNX BlackBerrys hit the streets, a new iPhone will have already been launched, not to mention a new version of Android and who-knows-how-many handsets to go with it. QNX could indeed provide a fresh take on the BlackBerry paradigm (and the ability to play well with Android apps couldn’t hurt), but what if the BlackBerry paradigm is itself the problem? BlackBerrys have a reputation as being the workhorse of the smartphone world, thanks to their corporate pedigree. It took a phone like the BlackBerry Pearl (which, coincidentally, launched almost exactly five years ago) to take RIM out of the boardroom and into the backpack. Even then, a few years and over a dozen BlackBerry models later, nothing seems to have changed. Let me qualify that a bit: the hardware has certainly gotten better, and RIM has made efforts to expand the idea of what your BlackBerry can do (BBM Music comes to mind), but for better or worse, the BlackBerry’s communications-friendly DNA remains untouched. You can take a BlackBerry out of a business, but it never feels like you can take the business out of a BlackBerry. That’s not necessarily a bad thing, but in a landscape where we lean on our smartphones to inform, entertain, and connect us, the BlackBerry seems almost quaint. That said, I don’t think anyone should count RIM out quite yet. While I don’t think QNX will be the be-all-end-all that RIM was hoping for, it could give the platform just enough fresh air to hang in there until something truly drastic takes place.
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| Wyse Releases New Version Of Cloud Storage App PocketCloud Posted: 21 Sep 2011 11:18 AM PDT  Wyse Technology, the developers of cloud storage app PocketCloud, is launching a new version of its service today, which turns smartphones and tablets into virtual desktops by letting you control anything on your PC from a mobile device. PocketCloud utilizes customers' existing storage on their Mac, PC and virtual desktops rather than storing files on third-party servers. Wyse's personal cloud costs $1 per month for unlimited storage. With other services once a user's files are uploaded to the cloud, control of the privacy and security of this data becomes the responsibility of a third party. Wyse provides remote access to files securely stored on users' devices and does not limit either the number or type of files that can be shared between personal devices. The new version of PocketCloud allows unlimited file sharing, of any file type between your iPhone and iPad and your computer for only just $1 a month. So you can link devices, and share music and other files between these devices. PocketCloud also includes support for OS X (Lion) user account authentication, and support for iPad 2 video mirroring. Wyse claims that they are able to give you much of the same functionality as Amazon, DropBox and others at a fraction of the cost. But with Apple’s upcoming iCloud launch soon, we’ll see if PocketCloud can retain users, especially for iOS.
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| Microsoft: Mango Will Roll Out “In The Next Week Or Two” Posted: 21 Sep 2011 10:59 AM PDT  File this one under “It’s about time” — Microsoft has announced today that they intended to roll out their Windows Phone 7.5 (a.k.a “Mango”) update to current devices within “the next week or two.” Sure, it’s still not an exact date, but Microsoft has a good reason for this: they can’t really provide one. According to Eric Hautala, General Manager for Customer Experience Engineering, Microsoft will push out the update, and each hardware partner will deliver a matching firmware specifically tuned for the Windows Phone it’s being pushed out to. Since the process relies on software components from Microsoft and OEMs like HTC and Samsung, I wouldn’t expect the floodgates to open for all devices at the same time. Considering that an entire slice of the smartphone market will be getting a update of the course of a few weeks, a rolling release is probably more likely to ease the process. Oh, and a quick warning to hackers and enthusiasts alike: Hautala was also quick to point out that anyone looking to make the official Mango jump should do well to stay away from pre-release or unofficial software builds. He doesn’t go into specifics, but it seems as though working with unofficial firmware could cause some unpleasantness when the official update tries to install. While still vague, Microsoft’s annoucement is a huge improvement over what AT&T had to say a few weeks ago: when they announced their new line of Mango-powered Windows Phones, they also casually mentioned that the Mango update itself would begin rolling out to devices sometime “this fall.” If you just can’t wait to get your hands on Mango, feel free to mash F5 on Microsoft’s Where’s My Phone Update? page. If all goes well, the update will be pushed to your phone before the carpal tunnel sets in.
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| GroupMe Co-Founder: GroupMe Won’t Be My Last Startup Posted: 21 Sep 2011 10:58 AM PDT  Ah, the majestic serial entrepreneur in its natural habitat. GroupMe may have cashed out with a $50+ million acquisition by Skype (after the initial product was built overnight at a TechCrunch Hackathon, no less), but that doesn’t mean its founders are about to yacht up and sail off into retirement. At this morning’s Twilio Conference, Twilio CEO Jeff Lawson brought GroupMe co-founder Steve Martocci up on stage and asked him, quite simply: “Is GroupMe going to be your last startup?” His answer? No way. Steve was actually the Lead Software Engineer at luxury designer deal site Gilt until about one month after launching GroupMe. He left the day his stock options in Gilt vested. “Watching all of this, and working with Skype, and this company they might be folded into soon [meaning Microsoft, presumably]… it’s given me a lot of experience. I’m going to take that experience and re-use it with something else.” Sadly, he didn’t offer up any hints as to what his next startup might entail — whatever it may be, Steve, feel free to launch it at another Disrupt Hackathon. Update: For clarification, Steve’s folks have asked us to mention that this doesn’t mean he’s trying to leave GroupMe/Skype any time soon (they say “He is 100% committed to seeing Skype and GroupMe grow to 1 billion users and is not planning to go anywhere.”) — just that at some point in the future, eventually, he know’s he’ll be going in for another round in the startup game. GroupMe is a group messaging and conference calling service that lets you stay in touch with groups of people via mobile phones. It’s a free service that allows users to create and manage groups that, in effect, create an SMS-based chatroom. However, normal messaging rates apply, so make sure you have an SMS package, or awareness of the rates your carrier charges. New York-based GroupMe was founded in 2010 at the TechCrunch Disrupt Hackathon. Steve is the Co-Founder of GroupMe. Previously, he was a Lead Software Engineer at Gilt Groupe. Before joining Gilt, Steve was the founder of Sympact Technologies, a startup focused on developing dynamic images for real-time email marketing. Steve also founded Bandwith.us, a friends and family ticketing platform for Lollapalooza and Austin City Limits and nationally touring acts. Steve graduated from Carnegie Mellon University in 2004 with a B.S. in Information Systems. With a penchant...
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| Verizon CEO: A Third Mobile Platform Will Emerge In The Next 12 Months Posted: 21 Sep 2011 10:10 AM PDT  iOS and Android are great, clearly. But that doesn’t mean we don’t have room in our hearts for a third platform. Verizon CEO Lowell McAdam feels the same way, expecting a third “smartphone ecosystem” to butt in to the current Apple/Google dominated space. Out of the various options, McAdam said he sees Samsung’s Bada, Microsoft’s Windows Phone 7.5, or RIM’s forthcoming QNX-based BlackBerry platform to fill the spot. “The carriers are beginning to coalesce around the need for a third ecosystem,” said McAdam. “Over the next 12 months I think it will coalesce and you will start to see one emerge as a legitimate third ecosystem.” In my opinion, it’ll be between RIM and Microsoft, and I expect Microsoft to come out victorious. As far as QNX is concerned, RIM will have to bring something other than messaging to the table. Messaging, whether it be through email or BBM or text, is the BlackBerry’s stand-out feature. Any BlackBerry owner I’ve ever grilled says messaging can’t be beat, but it only takes a couple minutes perusing through Android devices with a physical keyboard to realize that BlackBerry messaging isn’t worth everything you’re missing out on. That’s not to say that I think Android phones are better messaging devices; RIM still owns the space. All I’m saying is that Android offers up messaging that works just fine, but with a million other features that are no where to be seen on a BlackBerry. And if that’s not enough, messaging in Windows Phone Mango is absolutely killer. Each contact is its own thread, and whether you’re chatting it up on Facebook, in texts, in emails, basically anything, Mango threads it all together into one cohesive conversation. Add to that speech-to-text capabilities and Mango is an easy sell. Since messaging is the primary activity on most phones, the way it works in this or that OS is incredibly consequential. Even with share prices at a five-year low, BlackBerry users are still around and they’re just as loyal as they’ve ever been. That’s almost always a product of the line’s messaging power. After giving us a 12-month time frame for this third platform emergence, McAdam also touched on the current legal battle between the Department of Justice and AT&T, reports Fierce Wireless. In all honesty, it not only affects Verizon and McAdam, but it really will make a difference (however minute) in all of our lives. As far as McAdam is concerned, the most important thing he can do right now is pay very close attention to whether or not the outcome of the AT&T/DOJ suit will have any affect on Verizon. “I think it’s important to be thoughtful about this,” McAdam said. Verizon Communications Inc. delivers broadband and other wireline and wireless communication innovations to mass market, business, government and wholesale customers. Verizon Wireless operates America’s largest wireless network that serves nearly 102 million customers nationwide. Verizon’s Wireline operations include Verizon Business and Verizon Telecom, which brings customers converged communications, information and entertainment services over Verizon’s fiber-optic network. Microsoft, founded in 1975 by Bill Gates and Paul Allen, is a veteran software company, best known for its Microsoft Windows operating system and the Microsoft Office suite of productivity software. Starting in 1980 Microsoft formed a partnership with IBM allowing Microsoft to sell its software package with the computers IBM manufactured. Microsoft is widely used by professionals worldwide and largely dominates the American corporate market. Additionally, the company has ventured into hardware with consumer products such as the Zune and... Samsung is one of the largest super-multinational companies in the world. It’s possibly best known for it’s subsidiary, Samsung Electronics, the largest electronics company in the world.
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| AT&T’s Galaxy S II Will Launch On October 2 For $199.99 Posted: 21 Sep 2011 08:59 AM PDT  Sprint’s version of the Samsung Galaxy S II was the first to hit the streets, but AT&T isn’t far behind with their own model. While it’s not available just yet, AT&T has announced today that their version will launch on October 2, with a $200 price tag on contract. Like the Sprint model, AT&T’s Galaxy S II runs on Samsung’s own 1.2 GHz dual-core Exynos processor, but sports a 4.3-inch Super AMOLED Plus display instead of the 4.52-inch display found on both the Sprint and T-Mobile variants. While the slightly smaller screen may give some customers a mild case of display envy, there’s an upside: all three versions at the same 800×480 screen resolution, meaning AT&T’s version gets a higher pixel density. A remarkably solid 8-megapixel rear camera, 16 GB of internal flash storage, and a revamped version of Samsung’s TouchWiz UI round out the package. Customers will have to settle for AT&T’s kinda-sorta-4G though, as Samsung hasn’t deigned to give this beauty an LTE radio. With this and the new iPhone looking at a launch window next month, it looks like Halloween won’t be the only reason this October will be worth looking forward to.
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| A Look At Who’s Winning The Global Internet Speed Race [Infographic] Posted: 21 Sep 2011 08:55 AM PDT  In July, we covered a study released by Pando Networks, a digital download delivery company, that outlined some striking disparities in the current quality of internet access and speed across the U.S. Among the study’s more revealing findings was the size of the gap between those at the front of the pack in terms of connectivity speeds and those at the back — a difference of tenfold. Interestingly, Rhode Island came in as the state with the fastest download speeds, compared to Idaho which brought up the rear with an average speed of 318KBps. Today, Pando Networks has released another study that reveals the speed and reliability not just of the U.S. but of the global landscape in an attempt to provide a comprehensive look at the accessibility of the world’s data. Interestingly, the average global download speed is 580KBps, showing among other things that Idaho’s speed pales in comparison to worldwide average. But what may come as a surprise to some is that the U.S. ranked in at 26th with an average speed of 616KBps, compared to South Korea, the world speed champion, which came in with a blinding average speed of 2,202KBps. Coming in behind South Korea are the surprise runners-up: The small eastern European nations of Romania at 1,909KBps and Bulgaria at 1,611KBps. Bet you didn’t see that coming. Especially considering that North America is so far down the list in comparison to eastern European nations, which dominated the rankings with Lithuania coming in fourth at 1,462KBps, Latvia in fifth at 1,377KBps, and Ukraine in eight at 1,190KBps. Compare this to the U.S. in 26th place, Canada in 31st, and Mexico in 86th. In terms of the completion rate for measured downloads, Pando’s study found that they were closely correlated with average speeds, with South Korea again taking the cake with a 94 percent completion rate. closely correlates with average speed, South Korea again taking top prize with a 94% completion rate and most of the other speedy countries not far behind. Developing nations in Africa and Asia unsurprisingly brought up the back of the pack, with the Congo showing the slowest average speed at 13KBps, the Central African Republic at 14KBps, and Comoros at 23KBps. (Other countries of note include China at 245KBps and Australia at 348KBps.) Also of not is the study’s breakdown of global data to the city level, which yet again found that the fastest six cities are located in South Korea. Andover, Massachusetts and Bucharest, Romania were the only two cities outside of the gaming powerhouse South Korea to slide into the top 10. Obviously, on a global level, just as it is with the U.S., the disparities between the fastest and slowest countries is jaw-dropping. Not to mention that one might expect developed countries like the U.S., the United Kingdom, France, China, and Canada to round out the top 5, while none of them even managed to break the top 20. Instead, as CEO of Pando Networks Robert Levitan said, the fastest speeds were found in markets like Eastern Europe, where “focus on infrastructure development and favorable geography promote an incredible level of connectivity”. For more, check out Pando’s nifty infographic below or visit Pando at home here. Excerpt image courtesy of CSMonitor.com Pando Networks is a provider of peer-assisted media distribution services that enable content owners to cost-effectively distribute full-screen, HD media via the Web, RSS, Email, IM and portable devices. Pando’s patent-pending hybrid peer-to-peer platform combines commercial-grade content control with the network-effect of consumer super-distribution.
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| Microsoft And Nokia Release Windows Phone Porting Guides For Symbian Developers Posted: 21 Sep 2011 06:45 AM PDT  Microsoft and Nokia have teamed up on a package of new tools aimed at getting Nokia developers prepared for the transition to Windows Phone. Announced today are three jointly developed tools and guides, the most notable being the addition of Symbian Qt to the Windows Phone API mapping tool. The Windows Phone mapping tool, which already supports iOS and Android, serves as a translation dictionary between the Windows Phone platform and other mobile operating systems. With it, developers can pick out the API calls in their apps, then look up the equivalent classes, methods and notification events in Windows Phone. To be clear, this is not a direct porting tool – it doesn’t do the work for you. Developers can simply reference the guide to aid in porting their applications. Included in the mapping tool are the core libraries for Qt 4.7 for Symbian (QtCore, QtGui, QtLocation, QtNetwork, QtSensors, QtSql, QtXml, QtWebKit, QML Elements and QML Components). Sample code and tutorials are available, too. Microsoft and Nokia have also released a 100-page white paper to serve as the de facto guide for Symbian Qt Application Developers interested in learning about Windows Phone. Within its 8 chapters, the companies detail Windows Phone guidelines, C# programming, the application life cycle, porting procedures and more. Today also heralds the start of a series of developer events called the “Nokia Windows Phone Training” roadshow, with the first event being held in Paris. The events will then be held throughout Europe and Australia on the following days: Milan, Italy (Sept 26), Madrid, Spain (Sept 29), Berlin, Germany (Oct 4), London, United Kingdom (Oct 10), Sydney (Sept 24-25[SOLD OUT], Oct 8-9), Melbourne (Oct 8-9[SOLD OUT, wait list]) and Brisbane (Oct 8-9). The U.S. dates, including the Silicon Valley dates, are not yet available. Symbian isn’t a dead operating system just yet – after all, it received a big update just last month. But Nokia has publicly stated it plans to phase it out over time. Windows Phone is what’s next for Nokia, and it’s not surprising to see these tools and guides launch just prior to the release of the first Nokia Windows Phone, expected by year-end. Microsoft, founded in 1975 by Bill Gates and Paul Allen, is a veteran software company, best known for its Microsoft Windows operating system and the Microsoft Office suite of productivity software. Starting in 1980 Microsoft formed a partnership with IBM allowing Microsoft to sell its software package with the computers IBM manufactured. Microsoft is widely used by professionals worldwide and largely dominates the American corporate market. Additionally, the company has ventured into hardware with consumer products such as the Zune and... Nokia is a Finnish multinational communications corporation. It is primarily engaged in the manufacturing of mobile devices and in converging Internet and communications industries. They make a wide range of mobile devices with services and software that enable people to experience music, navigation, video, television, imaging, games, business mobility and more. Nokia is the owner of Symbian operation system and partially owns MeeGo operating system.
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