MobileCrunch |  |
- In-Depth Hands-On: Galaxy Nexus And Ice Cream Sandwich (Android 4.0)
- A Quick Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich Feature Rundown
- Ice Cream Sandwich: “Native Resolution” Is 720p
- Galaxy Nexus Officially Announced At Hong Kong Event (Update: With Video)
- Ballmer On Not Buying Yahoo: “Sometimes You’re Lucky”
- Meeker Says Majority Of Pandora’s And Twitter’s Traffic Is Mobile; Square Transactions Grew 20,000%
- Samsung Outs Verizon-Bound Galaxy Nexus On Their Website
- After A Rare Miss, Apple Predicts Record iPhone, iPad Sales And Hints At A $40 Billion Quarter
- Vodafone and Canonical Release a Webbook in South Africa
- Video: Hands-On With Motorola’s iPod Nano Challenger, The MOTO ACTV
- Bill Gross Explains What’s Different About Chime.in: “You Can Follow A Part Of A Person”
- Hands-On With The Verizon Droid RAZR By Motorola
- Verizon Officially Unveils The World’s Thinnest Smartphone: The Motorola Droid RAZR
- RIM Announces The BBX Platform, The Future Of BlackBerry
- RIM Announces 1 Billion App World Downloads
- RIM’s Last Bullet
- There Will Be Cake: Here’s How To Motivate Your Start-Up
- Lookout Finally Brings Intelligent Smartphone Security And Tracking Application To iOS
- Samsung Galaxy Nexus Leaked: Image, Specs And Launch Date
| In-Depth Hands-On: Galaxy Nexus And Ice Cream Sandwich (Android 4.0) Posted: 19 Oct 2011 01:02 AM PDT  Say goodbye to Android as you know it. Ice Cream Sandwich (otherwise known as Android 4.0) is coming, and it’s the biggest upgrade Android has seen to date. But fancy new software isn’t the only thing Google’s been working on: they’ve also just announced their new flagship Android device, the Samsung-made Galaxy Nexus. I got to spend a solid chunk of time with both the new hardware and the new software, and have returned with a venerable mountain of first impressions, insight, and the best damned demo video you’ll find anywhere.
The Demo Video:The HardwareAs an army of now-unemployed webOS employees could tell you: without good hardware, good software is nothing. Fortunately, the Galaxy Nexus is — at least from what we’ve seen so far — good hardware. Really good. As in, quite possibly the best looking piece Samsung has ever built. Take the resoundingly solid design of the Galaxy S II, add the subtle curve of the Nexus S’ display, throw in some svelte curves for good measure — Ta-da! You have the Galaxy Nexus. Appearing from the side as something not unlike a teardrop, the Galaxy Nexus tapers from above down into an ever-so-slightly thicker base. Unlike the “hump” found on the rump of the Motorola Droid X (or even the just announced Droid RAZR), however, Google tells me that the deeper base is designed as such for sake of ergonomics, rather than as a store-all for the device’s thickest components. Also unlike the Droid X, the Galaxy Nexus’ wider bit doesn’t detract from the device’s overall look. There was one bit of the body that I wasn’t a fan of, though: the battery cover. Like many a Samsung before it, the Galaxy Nexus’ battery cover is made up of a chintzy-feeling plastic. You wouldn’t notice until you pulled the cover off… but once you do, it just sort of sticks with you. My opinion may be swayed a bit after having seen the exceedingly slick Kevlar rear of the Droid RAZR this morning — though arguably, the RAZR’s rear panel isn’t removable. Samsung has been improving their Super AMOLED series of displays at a breakneck pace, and they didn’t ease off the gas for this one. With an HD resolution of 1280×720 (a first in the mobile world) and coming in at a mindblogging 4.65″, I couldn’t help but wonder: would the screen be too big? The answer is no. In most cases, it felt no larger than the now relatively commonplace 4.5″ screen. Why? It’s all about the buttons. Where previous devices might’ve put their capacitive hardware keys, the Galaxy Nexus puts more display. The buttons become a part of the screen itself, allowing the screen to appear to be a more comfortable 4.5″-or-so during regular use, expanding out to 4.65″ (by hiding the onscreen buttons) only when it’s most beneficial to the experience (like during video playback.) This on-screen button trickery is an optional offering of Ice Cream Sandwich, so expect other manufacturers to pick it up stat. Though I didn’t manage to finagle a sample shot to offer up as evidence, the quality of the device’s front and rear camera seemed about average. I tested the device in a relatively low-light room, and I was neither harshly disappointed nor overwhelmingly impressed. The Software (Android 4.0/Ice Cream Sandwich)Ice Cream Sandwich is Android as it should be. It’s the first time I’ve used Android and felt that Google has stepped anywhere near that truly fine balance between power, flexibility, usability, and good ol’ fashion beauty. Android has always been powerful — it just never really looked all that good doing it. Ice Cream Sandwich looks good. Really good. Oddly, I never liked Honeycomb, the tablet-only predecessor from which Ice Cream Sandwich takes so many visual cues. Both Honeycomb and Ice Cream Sandwich share a generally dark motif. Stretched out across a tablet’s display, that darkness can come across as a depressing, empty void. On the smaller display (as weird as it is to classify a 4.65″ display as “smaller”) of a smartphone, however, it’s sharp. I’m also a sucker for symmetry, and the center-aligned icons of ICS on a phone (as opposed to the side-aligned icons on a Honeycomb tablet) just look better. Ice Cream Sandwich’s Finer Features:
Ice Cream Sandwich is pretty. It’s polished. It’s animated, and shiny, and jam-friggin’-packed with gradients and alpha translucencies. What it’s not — at least not yet — is flawless. There was a crash here and there, and a tense moment or two when a slider just… wouldn’t.. work. Google was quick to note that the build I was seeing was a relatively old one — but even if it weren’t, they still have weeks to stomp out the lingering bugs for the initial release, and months before anyone really expects Ice Cream Sandwich to trickle out onto a wide array of devices. They’ll fix it up right. This is the first time in a while I’ve been genuinely excited about Android from a software standpoint, and I look forward to seeing more of ICS in the future. We will, of course, give it a full review as the launch approaches, so be on the lookout for that Google provides search and advertising services, which together aim to organize and monetize the world’s information. In addition to its dominant search engine, it offers a plethora of online tools and platforms including: Gmail, Maps and YouTube. Most of its Web-based products are free, funded by Google’s highly integrated online advertising platforms AdWords and AdSense. Google promotes the idea that advertising should be highly targeted and relevant to users thus providing them with a rich source of information....
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| A Quick Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich Feature Rundown Posted: 18 Oct 2011 08:29 PM PDT  While hardware junkies like myself may have spent the past few weeks drooling over the Galaxy Nexus, the onstage demo of Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich proves that the software powering the device is just as impressive (if not a little moreso). Our hands-on with the Galaxy Nexus and Ice Cream Sandwich will be coming shortly, but here’s a quick rundown of what Android 4.0 will be bringing to the table come November.
Developing…
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| Ice Cream Sandwich: “Native Resolution” Is 720p Posted: 18 Oct 2011 07:45 PM PDT  While introducing the new Galaxy Nexus today in Hong Kong, Samsung’s senior VP for product innovation, Kevin Packingham, said something that surprised me a little. He said that Android 4.0, Ice Cream Sandwich, is “specifically designed” to work with 720p as its native resolution. That seems a bit odd considering there will likely be only a handful of phones with displays capable of that. Furthermore, almost every tablet running Honeycomb is running a 1280×800 display. Not that 80 pixels is a huge difference, but it’s significant for app developers. In a way it’s forward looking, as 16:9 and high-density displays are definitely growing in popularity, but the fact is that for a good long while they’re just plain going to be expensive, part of the high-end superphone crowd. If Android 4.0 is supposed to be the road on which Android 2 and 3 finally meet, setting a standard neither one seems to use is a bad place to start. It may simply be that Google is embracing the fact that the Galaxy Nexus with its big 720p screen is, realistically speaking, going to be the only ICS device out there for a while. Maybe 4.1 will bring the various tools required accommodate lower resolutions and different aspect ratios. A native resolution isn’t a bad choice for a pilot device, though. If ICS doesn’t have to fit onto the great unwashed variety out there just yet, they can nail down UI principles, hunt down bugs, and generally focus on looking good — and then their next job can be entirely composed of adapting that work to new resolutions. It’s also possible that Packingham was just overstating the case.
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| Galaxy Nexus Officially Announced At Hong Kong Event (Update: With Video) Posted: 18 Oct 2011 06:33 PM PDT  There’s still half an hour to go until the Galaxy Nexus officially takes the stage in Hong Kong, but the official spec sheet has already begun to make the rounds. The Galaxy Nexus is, of course, the first device to run Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich, but the spec sheet has confirmed a few nifty features we were hoping would make the final cut. One long-awaited example is the ability to take screenshots by holding down the power and volume down buttons. The device also adds support for a novel “face unlock” feature that (what else?) allows users to gain access to their handsets just by flashing their pearly whites. The new People app also makes an appearance, complete with Google+ integration. The notification and multitasking systems have also been revamped to allow for quicker info and app management. As far as hardware goes, the Galaxy Nexus is set to impress. It packs a 4.65-inch Super AMOLED display running at 1280×720, 1GB of RAM, and a 1.2 GHz dual-core processor. Sorry folks, no word on the exact make of the processor, but the night still is still young and someone is bound to give out details sooner or later. The Galaxy Nexus indeed sports an NFC chip, as well as either an LTE or HSPA+ radio depending on your particular locale. It’s also being reported that the device will come in both 16 and 32GB variants, which likely won’t do much to appease those in search of microSD card slots. For better or worse, the 5MP camera that was hinted at in an earlier leak has been confirmed, although Samsung mentions that the camera will take photos with virtually no shutter lag. On the flip side, users will find a 1.3MP front-facing camera ready that’s ready for a bit of face time. Samsung has managed to squeeze all of that into a body that’s just 8.94mm thick — not quite Droid RAZR territory, but impressive nonetheless. The Galaxy Nexus is due to launch early November in the United States, Europe, and Asia. UPDATE: The Galaxy Nexus’s promo video has just gone live on YouTube. Enjoy! Developing…
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| Ballmer On Not Buying Yahoo: “Sometimes You’re Lucky” Posted: 18 Oct 2011 06:21 PM PDT  Speaking today at Web 2.0, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer was boisterous as usual. In a rousing talk with John Batelle, Ballmer talked about how, since last being on stage at Web 2.0 three years ago, Bing has doubled its market share, Microsoft hasn’t completely given up on competing with Google+ and social, the tech giant bought Skype for a boatload, among other topics of interest for Microsofties and Windows aficionados. In what was both a stroll down memory lane, and a calibration of Microsoft’s roadmap going forward, Batelle raised the question of whether or not Ballmer was glad that Microsoft didn’t buy Yahoo for $44 billion back in 2008. “Times change”, the CEO said. “You ask any CEO who didn’t buy something big before the market crashed [in 2008, they'll probably say], ‘Hallelujah!’”. But, in a twist of fate, the U.S. economy dipped into one of the biggest recessions in history in 2008, and had Yahoo accepted Microsoft’s terms, perhaps ironically, the deal would have been settled right around the time that Lehman collapsed, he said. “Sometimes you are lucky”, Ballmer admitted, grinning. When asked if Microsoft is punting on social, Ballmer said that Skype and Xbox “seem social” to him and likely represent entry points into the broadly “social” market, and that, going forward, Microsoft is looking to add connectivity into its core products, specifically as its Skype product integration continues. Then, regarding Microsoft’s play in apps in the cloud? Ballmer, channelling Charlie Sheen, chanted: “We’re winning, winning, winning”. When asked who Microsoft is beating? Google. Lastly, all those gathered couldn’t let Ballmer go without asking about mobile. In reference to how Microsoft is competing with Android, the skyrocketing young upstart in the mobile market, Ballmer seemed optimistic about the prospect of Windows tablets, and phones specifically. Windows Phones have a leg up from the average consumer’s perspective, he said, because “you don’t need to be a computer scientist to use a Windows phone”, the CEO quipped. Zing! 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... Steven A. Ballmer is Chief Executive Officer of Microsoft. Ballmer joined Microsoft in 1980 and was the first business manager hired by Bill Gates. Since then, Ballmer's leadership and passion have become hallmarks of his tenure at the company. During the past 20 years, Ballmer has headed several Microsoft divisions, including operations, operating systems development, and sales and support. In July 1998, he was promoted to President, a role that gave him day-to-day responsibility for running Microsoft. He was named...
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| Meeker Says Majority Of Pandora’s And Twitter’s Traffic Is Mobile; Square Transactions Grew 20,000% Posted: 18 Oct 2011 04:39 PM PDT  Mary Meeker gave her annual slide presentation at the Web 2.0 Summit today. The standout slides for me are the ones which track the breakout growth of the mobile web, a trend she was focused on last year and has continued to track closely. Mobile just keeps on ramping up growth. I’ve pulled out five of her slides which illustrate this trend. For certain large Internet services, mobile already represents a majority of traffic. For Pandora, 65 percent of traffic comes from mobile, while Twitter gets 55 percent from mobile. Facebook, meanwhile, is only at 33 percent mobile (a percentage it expects to increase dramatically). Mobile sales is also becoming a serious driver of e-commerce. eBay’s gross mobile sales is already at $4 billion, PayPal is doing another $3 billion in mobile transactions, Amazon is at an estimated $2 billion, and Square is already at $1 billion in gross mobile sales volume going over its system (an incredible 20,000 percent year-over-year growth rate). Mobile search is up fourfold in the past year, while mobile app and advertising revenues combined is growing at a 153 percent compound annual rate since 2008. In the past four years mobile apps and advertising has gone from a $700 million market to an estimated $12 billion market this year. Of course much of this growth is being driven by two mobile platforms, iPhone and Android. It’s really a two-horse race. With tablets, however, the two horse race is between iPad and Kindle. Mary Meeker has joined the Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers as a partner. Previously she joined Morgan Stanley in 1991 as the Firm’s PC Software/Hardware & New Media analyst. Earlier, she served as a Technology Research Analyst at Cowen and at Solomon Brothers. She received an MBA in Finance from Cornell University in Ithaca, New York (1986), and a BA in psychology from DePauw University, in Greencastle, Indiana (1981) . Meeker’s work has been recognized in various Wall Street Analyst... Pandora Radio is an internet radio service, recommendation service, and the custodian of the Music Genome Project. Users enter a song or artist that they enjoy, and the service responds by playing selections that are musically similar. Users provide feedback on approval or disapproval of individual songs, which Pandora takes into account for future selections. While listening, users are offered the ability to buy the songs or albums at various online retailers. As part of the Music Genome Project, over... Twitter, founded by Jack Dorsey, Biz Stone, and Evan Williams in March 2006 (launched publicly in July 2006), is a social networking and micro-blogging service that allows users to post their latest updates. An update is limited by 140 characters and can be posted through three methods: web form, text message, or instant message. The company has been busy adding features to the product like Gmail import and search. They recently launched a new site section called “Explore” for... Square is a revolutionary service that enables anyone to accept credit cards anywhere. Square offers an easy to use, free credit card reader that plugs into a phone or iPad. It’s simple to sign up. There is no extra equipment, complicated contracts, monthly fees or merchant account required. Co-founded by Jim McKelvey and Jack Dorsey in 2009, the company is headquartered in San Francisco with additional offices in Saint Louis and New York City.
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| Samsung Outs Verizon-Bound Galaxy Nexus On Their Website Posted: 18 Oct 2011 04:09 PM PDT  If you still weren’t convinced that Google and Samsung will be revealing the Verizon-bound Galaxy Nexus in Hong Kong tonight, check out what an eagle-eyed reader managed to dig up on Samsung’s own website. Yep, that’s the Galaxy Nexus alright. Interestingly, this is the first peek we’ve gotten at the device’s rear end, though it doesn’t actually reveal much. The Galaxy Nexus, like its forefathers, seems to have ditched all carrier branding in favor of advertising a purely Google/Samsung experience. Normally leaks like this come pouring out of the woodwork the closer we get to an official annoucement, but this one was especially easy to find. All it takes to dig up the Galaxy Nexus on Samsung’s US site is to punch the name into their search box. Don’t just take our word for it: feel free to head over to Samsung’s website and try your luck. Of course, there’s a very real chance that someone on Samsung’s web team will yank the offending search result, so we’ve saved a screenshot of the page for posterity. This is surely just the tip of the iceberg though, as details will start flying hard and fast once the event kicks off later tonight. [via Droid-Life]
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| After A Rare Miss, Apple Predicts Record iPhone, iPad Sales And Hints At A $40 Billion Quarter Posted: 18 Oct 2011 03:37 PM PDT  Yes, Apple missed with their earnings today. It’s the first time in a long time that has happened. Some are suggesting that hasn’t happened since 2002. That’s big news. But it’s also masking even bigger news: Apple’s expectations for next quarter. In a press release, it can be hard to tell what numbers on a page signify. But those who follow Apple closely must have taken one look at Apple’s guidance for next quarter and had their jaws drop. I know mine did. Apple is projecting to make $37 billion in revenue next quarter, their holiday quarter. They’re projecting an EPS of $9.30. Both are insane (in a good way). To put this in some perspective, Apple has never had a quarter over $30 billion in revenue. The closest they’ve come was last quarter, when revenue hit $28.57 billion (this past quarter was their second best ever). A year ago during the holiday quarter, Apple did $26.7 billion in revenue. They’re projecting these numbers to be $10 billion higher. But that’s not the craziest part. Where this really gets insane is when you realize that Apple always lowballs their projections. For example, this past quarter, they estimated they would bring in $25 billion in revenue, which they easily beat (it was the Street projections that they missed). So if Apple says they’re going to make $37 billion next quarter, it’s entirely possible — hell, maybe even likely — that they still will never have had a $30 billion quarter — because next quarter may be a $40 billion quarter. Obviously, to get there, they would need to hit an absolute homerun. But again, it’s the holiday quarter for the top consumer electronics company in the world. And it’s the quarter that will see the initial sales of the iPhone 4S, which just launched last weekend to the tune of 4 million units sold in 3 days — the best sales for any phone ever. The iPhone is the key to Apple’s revenue, and it’s the reason why they missed expectations this past quarter. If the iPhone 4S sells well, $40 billion is not out of the question. For a bit more context, while Apple has held the profit title among tech companies for a little while, they’re still behind HP when it comes to revenue. HP announced revenues of $31.2 billion in their last reported quarter. A few months ago, I predicted that Apple would soon zoom past HP in this regard as well. Now it’s looking like they won’t just squeeze past, they’ll demolish them next quarter. HP’s all-time high for revenue in a quarter is around $33 billion. It gets even crazier. Apple is so confident that next quarter is going to be a blow-out quarter that twice on their earnings call today, Apple CEO Tim Cook and CFO Peter Oppenheimer went out of their way to predict that Apple would see record iPhone and iPad sales next quarter. That’s something Apple never does. Their guidance is always very general (and again, low) and they stick to talking about things at a high level. Not today. This is two Apple executives going out on a limb to predict records for their two key products next quarter. I think it’s pretty obvious that they would only do that if they felt like they weren’t going out on a limb. That is to say, Cook and Oppenheimer must be extremely confident that Apple is going to sell well north of 20 million iPhones (the previous record, set last quarter) and 11 million iPads (the record set this quarter). And a lot more. So while Wall Street is panicking right now — Apple’s stock is currently down over 27 points (6.5 percent) in after-hours trading after the miss — Apple seems more confident than ever. Sure, a part of it may be that Apple had to throw investors some bone in a period of relative volatility (a rare miss and just weeks after co-founder and CEO Steve Jobs passed away). But no matter which way you look at it, it’s one hell of a bone. Started by Steve Jobs, Steve Wozniak, and Ronald Wayne, Apple has expanded from computers to consumer electronics over the last 30 years, officially changing their name from Apple Computer, Inc. to Apple, Inc. in January 2007. Among the key offerings from Apple’s product line are: Pro line laptops (MacBook Pro) and desktops (Mac Pro), consumer line laptops (MacBook) and desktops (iMac), servers (Xserve), Apple TV, the Mac OS X and Mac OS X Server operating systems, the iPod (offered with...
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| Vodafone and Canonical Release a Webbook in South Africa Posted: 18 Oct 2011 03:24 PM PDT  Vodafone and Canonical today announced the Vodacom “Webbook”, the fruit of a joint effort to develop a low-cost mobile computing solution for South Africa. Most of the specs are about what you’d expect for such a device, with one extremely interesting twist: it’s powered by a Freescale IMX 51 processor (Cortex A8) CPU in order to lower cost and power consumption. This represents the first mainstream consumer Linux distribution built for the ARM platform. I spoke with Chris Kenyon, VP of Canonical’s OEM Services Group, about the device. Kenyon’s group of about 130 people work with original equipment manufacturers, like Vodaphone, to develop and nurture Ubuntu-powered solutions. For the Webbook, Kenyon told me that Vodaphone had a specific product concept in mind and they approached Canonical to help flesh out the details. This included building and rigorously testing a complete Ubuntu 11.10 installation for ARM. The Ubuntu installation on the Webbook is a pretty standard one: there wasn’t much tweaking required to get it working correctly. The biggest addition Canonical made to the Webbook was to pre-load it with lots of links and content relevant to the local market. According to Kenyon, emerging markets like South Africa not only represent huge potential sales volumes, but also introduce some interesting technology leaps. For example, wired networking is a rarity, while wireless networking has long been ubiquitous. Similarly, developing markets don’t have nearly the same kinds of legacy software baggage. These factors allow something like the Webbook to have a real chance at success in ways that simply don’t materialize in most of the developed world. While we sip lattes and gaze at our sundry tablets, much of the rest of the world is still struggling to get access to any computing platform. It might be tempting to dismiss the Webbook in the same way we regularly dismiss netbooks here on TechCrunch, but “clamshell devices will remain a vital part of computing for years to come,” said Kenyon. From the Vodafone press release: “With the Vodafone Webbook, Vodacom customers will be able to enjoy a portable internet experience with the Ubuntu operating system with various software applications, 24 months warranty and free software updates.” The Canonical press release notes that Ubuntu is known in “the developing world as a legal, full-featured and flexible technology that offers manufacturers and purchasers a real alternative that embraces an operating system, a compelling application stack and access to the cloud.” The legal aspect is an interesting one to keep in mind. Ubuntu’s core mission is to make computing available to everyone. As Kenyon observed, this means “more than just software” and the Webbook is just one of many examples of this. Canonical is expecting to ship on more than 10 million devices from name brands like Lenovo, Acer, and others. I expect we’ll see more market-specific devices like the Webbook next year.
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| Video: Hands-On With Motorola’s iPod Nano Challenger, The MOTO ACTV Posted: 18 Oct 2011 01:07 PM PDT  This morning, Motorola dropped a bit of a surprise with the MOTO ACTV, an iPod Nano-esque thimble of a device. Does the world need another tiny, crappy audio player? Probably not. But what about a tiny, Android-powered audio player that focuses on gauging exercise? Still, probably not — but hey, it’ll be fun to hack!
Now, lets be clear: the idea of a device that gauges your athletic ability isn’t a new one — nor was it new when Apple introduced the new iPod Nano with Nike+ integration. As they tend to do, Apple just made things suck less, introducing a somewhat-flashy device that just about anyone could comprehend. Motorola wants to go deeper. The ACTV is a bit more focused, diving far deeper into the niche that is hardcore athleticism. If the iPod Nano is 90% media and 10% exercise, the ACTV is split 50/50. Whereas the Nano is mostly a tricked-out pedometer, the ACTV has things like GPS, a heart-rate monitor, and a snazzy cloud-based backend for monitoring all of your stats over time — plus fancy tricks like Bluetooth pairing (allowing you to screen calls while gettin’ your run on without having to sweatily paw at your handset.) I spent some time with the ACTV this morning, albeit in a tiny office rather than out on the track. Read on for my impressions. First impressions:
The key feature here is Motorola’s backend, which the device automatically syncs with (via WiFi) to provide reports on your efforts. Have you gotten faster over time? Is your heart in better shape now than it was a month ago? This is the deal maker/breaker; if its not good enough, it’ll be hard to justify a separate, dedicated $249 device when a $199 iPod Touch (which, in an armband, is hardly more noticeable) has access to apps like Runkeeper. Sadly, this feature seemingly wasn’t ready for a preview just yet. To step away from the intended use case here for a second: man, do I hope Motorola didn’t go out of their way to lock this thing down. If the trends we’ve seen with iPod Nano are indication, hackers/modders will have an absolute field day with this thing. What do you think? Any gym/track rats out there already breaking into a sweat over this one? Motorola Solutions, Inc. (NYSE: MSI) is a data communications and telecommunications equipment provider that succeeded Motorola Inc. following the spin-off of the mobile phones division into Motorola Mobility Holdings, Inc. in 2011. The company is headquartered in Schaumburg, Illinois, a Chicago suburb. Motorola Solutions is composed of the Enterprise Mobility Solutions division of the former Motorola, Inc. Motorola Solutions also previously had a Networks division, which it sold to Nokia Siemens Networks in a transaction that was completed on April...
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| Bill Gross Explains What’s Different About Chime.in: “You Can Follow A Part Of A Person” Posted: 18 Oct 2011 11:37 AM PDT  Bill Gross was just on stage to officially introduce UberMedia’s latest product, Chime.in. The app hit iTunes yesterday. It is an online mobile social network built around interests. We’ve been seeing a lot of companies trying to tackle the interest graph lately, and Chime.in is the latest. Chime.in does this by layering the interest graph on top of the social graph (the connections between people you know). One way it does this is by applying a more finely tuned “selective follow” model. “You can follow a part of person or a whole person,” explains Gross. So if you only care about what I say about technology and startups, but could care less about the photos I post, you can only follow my startup stream. In this way, Chime.in attempts to filter out a lot of the noise from your noisiest friends (hello, Scoble). Backstage, Gross also explained the difference to me between Chime.in and Google Circles (which lets you segment your friends and people you follow). “Google Circles is filtering on the outbound,” says Gross, “this is filtering on the inbound.” What he means by that is Chime/in doesn’t filter only by friends, but by the topics they post and share. Chime.in is designed so that people can share their thoughts, photos, videos, and links. It could also turn into a marketing channel for entertainment brands. Gross announced partnerships with E! Entertainment, Universal Pictures, Bravo TV and Disney from the start and an investment (in UberMedia) from Comcast. Here is where Chime’in’s revenue model comes into play. Brands get to run ads on their Chime.in page, as well as in the mobile app. These are like fan pages on Facebook, except that the brands themselves get to make money off the ads on that page. “we let any brand make any rich profile page, we give them the real estate adjacent to it. They want to be were the social activity is happening.” Instead of simply giving links back to their own websites, brands can monetize their social streams as well. Person: Bill Gross Website: idealab.com Companies: Compete, Snap Technologies, eSolar, Idealab, UberMedia, Feedback.com Bill Gross is a lifelong entrepreneur and proponent of solar power. While still in college, Mr. Gross founded Solar Devices, a firm that sold plans and kits for solar energy products. As the CEO of the technology incubator Idealab, Mr. Gross has founded several extremely successful companies, including Overture (acquired by Yahoo!), CarsDirect, and Picasa (acquired by Google). Idealab recently moved into the renewable energy market with Energy Innovations, a sister company to eSolar that focuses on the retail...
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| Hands-On With The Verizon Droid RAZR By Motorola Posted: 18 Oct 2011 10:58 AM PDT  After the hot mess that was the Droid Bionic Saga (Delay! Delay! Delay! Screw it, release garbage.), I didn’t think I could ever like another Motorola device again. Guess I was wrong. I just spent a bit of time with the just announced Droid RAZR, and, at least at first glance, it is… surprisingly great. Dive in for my first impressions, won’t you? The First Impressions:
That’s all for now — but feel free to ask any questions down in the comments below. We’ll try to get our hands on a production device to give this thing a proper review in the coming weeks.
Motorola Solutions, Inc. (NYSE: MSI) is a data communications and telecommunications equipment provider that succeeded Motorola Inc. following the spin-off of the mobile phones division into Motorola Mobility Holdings, Inc. in 2011. The company is headquartered in Schaumburg, Illinois, a Chicago suburb. Motorola Solutions is composed of the Enterprise Mobility Solutions division of the former Motorola, Inc. Motorola Solutions also previously had a Networks division, which it sold to Nokia Siemens Networks in a transaction that was completed on April...
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| Verizon Officially Unveils The World’s Thinnest Smartphone: The Motorola Droid RAZR Posted: 18 Oct 2011 09:20 AM PDT  Update: Check out our hands-on impressions here! If you remember from a teaser video posted a few days ago, today is a big day. Verizon and Motorola have finally announced the much-anticipated Droid RAZR, the next LTE beast to grace big red’s shelves. Here at the launch event in New York City, we’re hearing four words over and over again: faster, thinner, smarter, and stronger. And that’s exactly how we’d describe the new Droid RAZR. The latest in Motorola’s line of Android smartphones takes heavily from its Droid brethren in terms of design, looking a lot like the Droid X/X2. It has that same “hump” along the upper back edge, likely making room for the camera and other goodies, but has dropped some weight with an even thinner waist line than its Bionic cousin. It’s also stronger, as promised in that teaser video, with a Kevlar fiber casing which, Motorola promises, will “withstand the back pocket test.” Ready for specs? Of course you are. The Droid RAZR touts a solid 4.3-inch qHD Super AMOLED 960×540 display, a 1.2GHz dual-core processor, Android 2.3 Gingerbread, 1GB of RAM, and of course, support for Verizon’s 4G LTE network. In fact, Verizon is claiming that this is its thinnest LTE-capable device to date, with a 7.1mm waist line. That Kevlar fiber casing isn’t the only “rugged” quality on this phone — it also comes with Motorola’s new Splash Guard technology and a stainless steel core. The new flagship also boasts an 8-megapixel rear-facing camera with dual-LED flash and autofocus (capable of video capture in 1080p). Sanjay Jha claims the phone will offer 12.5 hours of talk time and 8.9 hours of video playback. It’ll also come with Moto’s web top desktop app, if you go ahead and grab a Motorola Lap Dock. The RAZR also packs a microUSB port for charging along with HDMI out, naturally. Motorola has included support for its MotoCast application, which streams content (whether it be pictures, movies, or music) between the PC and the smartphone. Business users will also have corporate access to email, the ability to view/edit Word documents, Citrix Receiver for remote access to desktop, along with added password enforcement. Another awesome software feature would be the ability to sync your new MotoACTV watch with the Droid RAZR. In other words, you’ll be able to check text messages and see phone calls while you’re out jogging or hitting the gym. Pre-orders will start on October 27, and in-store/online availability begins in “November”. The Droid RAZR will cost $299 on-contract. Update: Check out our hands-on impressions here! Company: Motorola Mobility Website: motorolamobility.com Motorola is known around the world for innovation in communications and is focused on advancing the way the world connects. From broadband communications infrastructure, enterprise mobility and public safety solutions to mobile and wireline digital communication devices that provide compelling experiences, Motorola is leading the next wave of innovations that enable people, enterprises and governments to be more connected and more mobile. Motorola (NYSE: MOT) had sales of US $22 billion in 2009 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.
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| RIM Announces The BBX Platform, The Future Of BlackBerry Posted: 18 Oct 2011 09:08 AM PDT  Mike Lazaridis, CEO of Research in Motion, “The whole company is aligning behind this single vision. It combines the best of QNX and Blackberry.” Meet BBX. BBX is the future of RIM. Dan Dodge, president of QNX, joined Mike Lazaridis and proudly co-announced BBX. This platform incorporates enterprise, NOC and cloud services into one system that can run on smartphones, tablets and embedded systems. As Lazaridis stated, BBX is about bringing together “people, devices, content, and services.” RIM and QNX built BBX to be secure. The platform is IEEE POSIX certified and conforms to EAL4+ and IEC 61508 Safety (SIL3) standards. The POSIX cert should allow for easy porting of Linux/Unix apps while providing a good deal of security. HTML 5 is a big part of BBX. RIM sees the protocol as a bridge to older BB OS systems. Since BB 5 and BB 6 runs HTML 5, developers can code in HTML 5 for future and older devices. Details are still a bit light despite the company spending a good deal of time during the DEVCOM keynote. More info will come from the Tech Keynote address at a later time. Research In Motion (RIM) is a Canadian designer, manufacturer and marketer of wireless devices and solutions for the worldwide mobile communications market. The company is best known as the developer of the BlackBerry smart phone. RIM technology also enables a broad array of third party developers and manufacturers to enhance their products and services with wireless connectivity to data. RIM was founded in 1984. Based in Waterloo, Ontario, the company has offices in North America, Europe and Asia Pacific.
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| RIM Announces 1 Billion App World Downloads Posted: 18 Oct 2011 09:07 AM PDT  Mike Lazaridis, the belegaured co-head of RIM, took the stage at DevCon Americas to announce some strong numbers. First, RIM has just announced 1 billion App World downloads, which amounts to about 5 million downloads per day. The service is on pace to hit 2 billion this year. Mike went on to proudly state that on average, a BlackBerry app is downloaded 43% more than its iOS or Android counterpart. Part of this success is thanks to the smaller library amount but also because the BlackBerry App World is now available in 130 counties and supports 26 currencies with carrier billing in 10 countries. The platform is still going strong with 165 million RIM smartphones in current circulation and there has been an 80% increase in BBM users this year, up to 50 million. Lazaridis apologized for the recent outage and reiterated his promise to supply $100 in apps and services to every Blackberry user, thanking partners for their largesse. The initial statistics were fairly slim and RIM didn’t break out sales of phones vs. Playbook tablets.
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| Posted: 18 Oct 2011 07:30 AM PDT  It hasn’t been an easy year for RIM. The Playbook came out half-baked, their handset line has taken a pummeling from its ambitious competitors, the businesses and governments of the world are alternately hassling and blaming them, and as if that wasn’t enough, they just had a catastrophic global network failure and their olive branch is unlikely to fend off lawsuits. Did someone at RIM HQ break a mirror back in 2008? The doomsayers (like us) are plentiful, saying that it’s all over, pointing to shrinking market share, incompetent management, and general inertia. But the game’s not up yet and their complacence would make sense, looking back in a few years, if it turns out they had one more bullet in the chamber. Did they fire six last-ditch efforts to reinvigorate the company, or only five? They don’t seem to know themselves. Well, they’re about to pull the trigger and find out. I’ll be the first to say that this optimism isn’t exactly warranted, and I intend to cast it off like an old coat at the end of this post. The decisions RIM has made over the last few years have baffled me. But it’s essentially explainable in this way: they’re a square peg in a square hole, and they’ve been trying to make themselves round. It’s not the easiest task when millions worldwide depend on technologies they popularized a decade ago. Microsoft knows something about this, but they’ve had better success than RIM with the Xbox. It just won’t do to simply say they’re out of the game, though. Some companies have a glass jaw (Myspace) – some companies take a big hit and come out swinging stronger than ever (Apple). Not that I expect RIM to bounce back and dominate the industry, but all it takes is a good product and a bit of luck to start them on the right track again. The new QNX BlackBerry line will almost certainly be a compelling product, at least for the BlackBerry set. What about the luck? If RIM is confident about its services (last week’s outage notwithstanding), it’ll make its own luck. Their team will get out there and tell the big hitters of the world this: Apple and Android are full of holes, and any trustworthy software is from some dinky third party. Are these products that Boeing should be using, that governments should be using? RIM can play the security card, the fear card, the infrastructure card. They’ve been doing this for years, and not only have they been the only legitimate option that whole time, but the only company that could do it better? Bought ‘em! As much fun as it is to poke fun at RIM for their complacency, it lapses into complacency of our own when we ignore the fact that this is a globally-respected brand with millions of customers who would probably rather stick around than leave. Underestimate a cornered rat and the peril of your own fingers. The only trouble? All this advice only works in enterprise. RIM will have to abdicate their “prosumer” segment — not that there’s much to abdicate. Look, RIM guys, be realistic. It’s just too late. That ship failed when you failed to produce a credible competitor to the iPhone for four years. Nobody with a hundred bucks, browsing their carrier shop for a new smartphone, is going to pick up a BlackBerry. Not one in a hundred is going to buy one over an iPhone or Android device. RIM’s market is no longer these people, and let’s not kid around, that’s going to hurt. The question is whether RIM is man enough to rip the band-aid off. RIM might have missed again and again, but let’s not forget that they still have a loaded gun, even if there is just the one bullet left in it. Because sometimes one is all it takes. Research In Motion (RIM) is a Canadian designer, manufacturer and marketer of wireless devices and solutions for the worldwide mobile communications market. The company is best known as the developer of the BlackBerry smart phone. RIM technology also enables a broad array of third party developers and manufacturers to enhance their products and services with wireless connectivity to data. RIM was founded in 1984. Based in Waterloo, Ontario, the company has offices in North America, Europe and Asia Pacific.
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| There Will Be Cake: Here’s How To Motivate Your Start-Up Posted: 18 Oct 2011 07:24 AM PDT  Dexetra, a mobile start-up, impressed us all last night with their Siri clone, an Android app called Iris. The folks there were so thankful that their project hit the front page that they sent us a kind thank you as well as a picture of a cake that the founders gave the team in celebration of getting TechCruched [sic]. It’s heartwarming to see people who worked hard get rewarded for their excellent work, especially when the reward is in the form of cake. The founders would also like to thank you, the community:
Note: We are happy to post follow-up cakes in celebration of being TechCrunched, but let’s not make it a “thing.” Also, first person to comment “Slow news day?” gets cake. And banned.
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| Lookout Finally Brings Intelligent Smartphone Security And Tracking Application To iOS Posted: 18 Oct 2011 05:59 AM PDT  Lookout, a company that offers security services for a number of smartphone platforms has long catered to the mobile security need of Android, Windows Phone 7 and BlackBerry users but has not offered an iOS app. After two years of development, Lookout is finally releasing a dedicated security application for iPhones and iPads via a new, free iOS app launching today. For background, Lookout's web-based, cloud-connected applications for Android, Windows Mobile and BlackBerry phones help users from losing their phones and identifies and block threats on a consumer's phone. Users simply download the software to a device, and it will act as a tracking application, data backup and a virus protector much like security software downloaded to a computer. Clearly the iPhone app was a missing piece of the puzzle for Lookout, especially considering that iPhone owners do more with their phones than anyone else, including browsing the web, sending emails, using social networks and even mobile banking. In fact, 52% of iPhone users conduct mobile banking on their iPhone. When designing the app, Lookout focused a single, easy to use app to keep iPhone users safe, and started by addressing the biggest risks to iPhone users today. For example, in a survey, Lookout found that 93% of iPhone users said they have concerns about the security of the data stored on their phones. And 4 out every 10 iPhone users are unsure about the security of public WiFi. Plus More than a third of users don't regularly sync their devices. Basically the app secures your iPhone against all of these threats and more. With the missing device feature (which is the most popular feature on the Android app), you can use Lookout to help locate your lost or stolen phone on a map or sound a loud alarm to find it nearby. In terms of security, Lookout will walk you through the steps necessary to better protect your privacy and secure your iPhone. The app will actually notify you of settings or out of date software that could a phone’s privacy at risk, including letting you know if your iPhone is Jailbroken. Another feature alerts you when you connect to an unsecure WiFi network. And you can see which apps can access your location. Similar to Lookout’s other apps, the iOS app will back up your contacts and data on the iPhone and iPad. And with the addition of an iOS app, you can now manage a number of different devices, including your iPad, iPhone and even Android phone or tablet, from a dashboard on Lookout’s site. One feature noticeably missing from Lookout’s iOS app is malware protection. A few months ago, Lookout launched a new mobile browsing application that will automatically check every website a user visits, from an app, email, or browser on a mobile phone, to prevent phishing sites from stealing personal data and malware from being installed on a device. But the company says that historically malware has not been a problem with iOS, so it didn’t make sense to include this functionality in the new app. Of course, iOS 5 also offers some of these security features as well, including software updates and more. But Lookout says that the action users take of ‘not updating now’ and saving updates for later is the biggest threat to mobile security. Lookout is now 12 million users strong, and is now adding 1 million users a month. And Lookout’s app is actually powered by Lookout's Mobile Threat Network, which constantly analyzes global threat data to identify and quickly block new threats with over-the-air app updates. Threat detection that would have taken days now happens in minutes; effectively protecting users before they even know a threat exists. The Mobile Threat Network is powered by a dataset of over 700,000 mobile applications that grows daily as more applications are added to app stores around the world. On average more than 1000 apps are added to the Mobile Threat Network daily. There’s no doubt that with the addition of iOS Lookout’s userbase will growth significantly. And don’t be surprised if the company released a premium offering as well. Lookout just raised $40 million in new funding from Andreessen Horowitz, Khosla Ventures, Accel Partners and Index Ventures. John Hering, CEO and co-founder of Lookout, told us at the time of the funding that Lookout is ‘orders of magnitude bigger than’ its competitors including Symantec, and McAfee. His goal is to hit 100 million users soon, and certainly with a new iOS app, this could become a reality in 2012. ·
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| Samsung Galaxy Nexus Leaked: Image, Specs And Launch Date Posted: 18 Oct 2011 05:33 AM PDT  Well it would seem that NTT DoCoMo, one of the largest wireless carriers in Japan, has let slip the Samsung Galaxy Nexus announcement just a couple hours early. According to a tweet, “the latest Android OS smartphone with Google and Samsung Electronics [will be] announced on October 19 in Hong Kong tomorrow. DoCoMo is almost equivalent to the fastest in the world, scheduled for release in November. More later.” (Anyone who’s fluent in Japanese, please feel free to add clarity that Google Translate can’t.) Although we’re still waiting to confirm specs that have already been leaked, an Italian blog called Android HDBlog seems to have an official image (full-size version after the break). We’re not sure that this is 100 percent the real deal since we’d expect text in the image to be in Chinese. (The official announcement will be in Hong Kong.) Still, the blog claims that this comes straight out of Japan where what they call “the Japanese operator” has confirmed availability for November 20. According to Android HDBlog, these are the specs we’ll be seeing on the Samsung Galaxy Nexus:
We’re still unsure whether or not there’s support for a microSD card, but I would be kind of shocked if there wasn’t. Developing… [First image via Ameblo.jp] Google provides search and advertising services, which together aim to organize and monetize the world’s information. In addition to its dominant search engine, it offers a plethora of online tools and platforms including: Gmail, Maps and YouTube. Most of its Web-based products are free, funded by Google’s highly integrated online advertising platforms AdWords and AdSense. Google promotes the idea that advertising should be highly targeted and relevant to users thus providing them with a rich source of information....
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