8/31/2010 12:43:00 PM
kenmouse
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Apple
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Technology
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Apple has finally made their September event official, and it's coming sooner than many expected—the "special event" will be held September 1 in San Francisco, and from the look of things it's going to involve music.
Some possible announcements:
• New, Facetime-ready iPod Touches?
• A 1.7" touch screen iPod Shuffle? (And some cases to add gas to the speculation have already started popping up.)
• The feverishly anticipated cloud-enhanced iTunes?
• The long-rumored $99 Apple TV?
• 99 cent TV show rentals through Apple TV?
The Apple-sound-hole-guitar suggests that Apple's music making products might get updates—perhaps new versions of Logic and Garage Band? I certainly wouldn't mind if they were overhauled to take advantage of the Magic Trackpad's multitouch goodness. Or how about Garage Band for the iPad? Hell, I'd just take some news on the iPad's jump to iOS 4.whatever.
And perhaps at this event we'll finally find out the answer to the mystifying question: Why on Earth did Lady Gaga visit the Apple offices? If Gaga and Steve Jobs appeared on stage together, the combined reality distortion would be so great that I'm not sure our planet would ever recover.
We'll see soon—very soon—enough.
[Market Watch and Engadget]
8/31/2010 12:43:00 PM
kenmouse
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Android
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Google
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Microsoft
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Technology
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According to Business Insider, Microsoft says that Android's hidden manufacturing costs are much higher than their own $15-per-unit Windows Phone 7 license. They have some very good points, but others are not so good. Here are their arguments:
Good arguments
• Windows Phone 7 manufacturers are protected against IP lawsuits, unlike Android licensees (although one may argue that Google may be helping HTC behind the scenes).
• The Windows Phone 7 architecture allows for easy customization, using a plug-in architecture independent of the underlying OS. Microsoft argues that Android lacks this abstraction layer, which causes manufacturers to be slow in updating their customized Android versions. This, they say, reduces cost for the OEM, who doesn't have to re-tinker the whole thing every time Microsoft updates their mobile OS.
• Windows Phone 7 supports automated testing. Microsoft claims that Android doesn't, so the quality assurance phase is more expensive for Android handset manufacturers.
Not-so-good arguments
• Android manufacturers have to tailor the operating system to their device, creating drivers for various components—therefore incurring in extra development cost. Windows Phone 7 is plug and play, Microsoft says. Google can argue that manufacturers need to differentiate from each other and customization will always be needed.
• Android manufacturers need to pay licenses for must-have features standard in Windows Phone 7. However, the argument is not so strong because you can argue that Microsoft Office integration is not a must-have feature. Audio and video codecs, or location services, however, are must-have features that Microsoft argues that Android handset makers need to license.
Bad arguments
• Android manufacturers need to spend extra money to create "user experiences" comparable to Microsoft's own Metro UI, Zune or Xbox Live. While it's true that Windows Phone 7 has a nice user interface, Android manufacturers don't need to re-create this. They can happily use Google's own or ignore some features, which are not required for a phone to be successful.
If you buy the idea that Windows Phone 7 is going to rock everyone's socks off because of these features, then all of Microsoft's arguments are good. But until that's demonstrated, they would have to convince manufacturers to pay the $15 WP7 license fee based on the good arguments—which seem sound.
[Business Insider]
8/31/2010 12:42:00 PM
kenmouse
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Samsung Galaxy Tab
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Technology
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Guess what we have here, folks? Confirmation that the very sexy and very unannounced Samsung tablet device for Verizon Wireless is actually Samsung’s Galaxy Tab tablet. It is currently sitting pretty in Verizon’s internal systems, and a source of ours has sent in proof. Well, now that the mystery surrounding Samsung’s tablet is out, it won’t be long until we get to the bottom of Motorola’s slab device. According to our information, it should up the stakes on Samsung’s unit by running Android 3.0 and offering more screen real estate — 10″ worth.
8/31/2010 12:41:00 PM
kenmouse
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Mobile News
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Motorola XT300
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0 Comments
We've been wondering about this oddly intriguing mini Motorola portrait slider since we saw it back in July, and a new set of leaked photos today hasn't done anything to diminish our curiosity, since that keyboard looks pretty amazing. The reappearance of the red Droid eye seems to indicate this one's eventually destined for Verizon, but we'll see -- we're curious about the XT300 name being used in this photo set, which ties in with Moto's GSM naming scheme, and Verizon's reserved the Droid name for higher-end sets so far, while this thing looks like a mid-range Blur phone to us. Video after the break.
8/31/2010 12:40:00 PM
kenmouse
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Facebook
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MySpace
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Technology
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MySpace has finally made a concession of sorts: that rival Facebook has grown so dominant that not syncing up to its web of social connections would be a mistake. The News Corp.-owned social network, as was rumored late last year, has "synced" its service with Facebook (and Twitter) so that members can cross-post their status updates as well as shared content.
It's pretty self-explanatory, taking the recently revamped "stream" design of MySpace profiles and plugging in Twitter and Facebook's application program interfaces (APIs).
The "syncing" applies not only to individual MySpace users, but also bands and celebrities. One of the reasons why this is pretty imperative for MySpace is because it's in serious danger of losing out entirely to Facebook's "fan pages." MySpace gained much of its early traction because it was possible for independent musicians to establish a presence and manage a fan base there, something that lost its luster once Facebook's open-ended fan pages started to take off even more successfully than many had speculated.
"This is particularly exciting for the millions of musicians on MySpace who can now use this tool as a complement to their MySpace Music presence and share their vast library of content, including full album catalogs, to people who've liked their Facebook page," a release from MySpace explained.
8/31/2010 12:40:00 PM
kenmouse
, Posted in
Mobile News
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Motorola Droid X
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0 Comments
Despite Motorola's best intentions to the contrary, the Droid X has been making steady progress toward viable custom ROMs, first with root access, then with a recovery method... and now, at long last, we're starting to get the first few glimpses at legit cooked firmware. The two options we're seeing so far are Sapphire -- originally designed for the Droid of old -- and a so-called "FlyX" ROM from longtime contributor Birdman. In both cases, the benefits of eschewing Motorola's standard builds are pretty obvious: you get Froyo, root, and a host of apps and capabilities preferred by the superuser crowd like surcharge-free mobile hotspot access. The process is a little involved to get these bad boys installed at this point, but with time, we're willing to bet it becomes a pretty painless endeavor. Follow the break for a quick video of Sapphire booting into stock Froyo on the X -- a tantalizing sight, indeed.
8/31/2010 12:39:00 PM
kenmouse
, Posted in
Mobile News
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Samsung Fascinate
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0 Comments
We've seen these kinds of Verizon launch decks before, so we tend to believe the September 8 date we're seeing for the Fascinate here is legit -- granted, Wednesday is an odd day to launch a phone, but not a lot weirder than the Thursday, September 9 date we'd had before. Either way, it's looking like a sure thing that we're going to see this on shelves come next week, completing Sammy's impressive four-way coup to get its high-end Galaxy S line launched on all of the US nationals. Like the Droid 2 and Droid X, the Fascinate will feature Blockbuster Mobile to let you download full-length movies on the go -- in other words, that's a feature that won't be a Droid brand exclusive -- and Bing search will be installed out of the box, giving Microsoft a fun little foothold in Google's kingdom. So, who's buying? And while we're on the subject, why isn't this thing called the "Droid Fascinate?"
8/31/2010 12:45:00 PM
kenmouse
, Posted in
Where hath Anne Hathaway's hair gone?
I wanna hold your hand!
I think I liked Google Voice better back when it was hard to get an invitation. Back then it worked most of the time, and the infrequent outages were tolerable given how useful the service is overall. But over the last week the service has become spotty at best, and unusable at times. Given that I ported my phone number to Google I don’t have much choice but to soldier on in the short term – but Google needs to figure this out fast or they’ll lose me as a user.
