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Google TV 2.0 'Fishtank' developer kit revealed running Honeycomb and apps
As Google TV gears up for a Honeycomb-based v2.0, the team announced at the I/O event that developers could get access to "Fishtank" hardware for them to test their apps on and here it is, revealed by Geek.com. The hardware itself is a relatively nondescript box packing an Intel CE4100 processor (no ARM...yet) and a Logitech Revue wireless keyboard that connects wirelessly via a USB dongle, plus a few more ins and outs than retail boxes have including coax. The software is the real star with its Android 3.1 style blues and blacks in the new menus providing access to a list of running apps, logged in accounts and notifications. Things could change before the beta ends, but this report indicates a major issue between is how developers will get to display or interact with live TV. Being able to overlay data on a live feed, or at least have Dual View picture-in-picture is a big part of many developer's plans and so far Google has apparently not committed to making API access available. Bringing interactivity to broadcasts would be a major advantage for Google TV as a connected TV platform if it can pull it off, we'll see if it makes it into this summer's update or if it ends up on the waiting-for list alongside SageTV integration. [Thanks, @ohpleaseno]
MightyText pushes messages and incoming call alerts to your computer (hands-on)
Have you ever missed an extremely important phone call or text because you were too busy finishing those TPS reports on your personal computing machine? There's a Chrome add-on for that. We went hands-on with a new extension (and accompanying Android app) called MightyText, a free notification service launched today that syncs your phone's texts and calls to your computer in real-time. The idea is crazy simple, yet adds unyielding convenience: incoming SMS messages appear on your screen as a pop-up, giving you the option to read and reply to them without touching or even looking at the phone. The full extension will show each conversation thread in its entirety, as well as call logs. When sent from the computer, texts are still patched through from your phone number, so your colleagues will still see your messages coming through with your name on them. To make the service even more appealing, pop-ups alert you to incoming calls, so you can either hurry to find your phone or just send the caller a canned auto-text reply. It sounds like a great concept, but does it do the job? Head on past the break to learn our first impressions of the program.
iPad brand four times stronger than competing tablets
A new Bernstein Research survey suggests Apple will dominate the tablet market in the same way its iPods dominate the MP3 market. According to the survey, 50% of respondents in the US and the UK prefer the iPad over competing tablets. Surprisingly, even tablets from successful smartphone manufacturers can't compete with the iPad. The survey results show the iPad is more popular in the US than tablets from HTC, Motorola, Nokia, Samsung and RIM combined. Apple also sets the standard for size with over 50% of respondents choosing the almost 10-inch display of the iPad over the 7-inch size used by Samsung and others. The preference is so strong that Bernstein Research predicts 7-inch tablets, like the BlackBerry PlayBook, are doomed to fail. Bernstein predicts two market scenarios for tablet devices, and in both situations, Apple is at the top and the other manufactures are vying for the leftover scraps.
Shenzhen mobile phone market: going deeper inside Huaqiangbei
It's safe to say that most of our readers are accustomed to phone shops that are well lit, fairly spacious, and not peppered with KIRF products. But if you're feeling adventurous and want to take a dip in the deep end of the pool, then Shenzhen's Huaqiangbei district should satisfy your strange curiosity. As we've shown you in our previous trip, our gadget paradise covers an extensive range of products, including phones, computers, cameras, all the way down to circuitry components like LEDs, chips, and resistors. Our latest discovery, however, is an entire building dedicated to mostly mobile phone products. Read on to find out what this madness is all about -- a video tour awaits after the break. %Gallery-123728%
US DOJ greenlights Google's $900 million bid for Nortel patents; Apple, RIM also interested
It looks like Google will be able to bid on Nortel's patent portfolio after all, now that the Department of Justice has weighed in on the matter. According to the Wall Street Journal, El Goog's $900 million bid has passed a governmental antitrust review, just a few days ahead of next week's auction. Rivals like Microsoft, AT&T and Verizon had previously filed complaints with the DOJ, arguing that the sale of Nortel's 6,000 patents would give an unfair advantage to the auction's winner by providing it with a fresh arsenal for patent-infringement lawsuits. Google, however, claims it needs the portfolio to defend itself against legal challenges, since it has comparatively few patents to its name. The DOJ apparently sees nothing illegal with this argument, having determined that singular ownership of Nortel's intellectual property would pose no threat to market competition. This is obviously music to Google's ears, but the battle isn't over yet. Sources tell the Journal that both RIM and Apple are interested in filing their own bids for the patents, and have already begun discussing the matter with the Justice Department. None of the companies involved have commented on the story, but it'll all go down on June 20th, when the auction finally gets underway.
Acer lowers forecast for tablet, notebook shipments, blames limping European economy
Acer had high hopes for 2011, but it looks like its expectations may have been a bit too optimistic. Today, the company issued revised forecasts for shipments of its tablet PCs, predicting to move between 2.5 and three million units by year's end -- down from the five to seven million it projected earlier. Acer chairman J.T. Wang expects current quarter notebook shipments to dip by ten percent from their Q1 levels, before stabilizing or slightly increasing during Q3. According to the new-look firm, these downward revisions are largely due to lagging economic growth in Europe, though its Asian and US markets "remain healthy." European inventories are expected to decrease to normal levels by the end of this month, which should allow the company's market share to rebound during the second half of this year. It's certainly not a dire outlook, but it's probably not the start new Corporate President Jim Wong was looking to get off to, either.
Sony, Panasonic, others to launch cross-platform e-book service, later this year
Don't look now, but there's some major synergy going on in Japan's e-book market, now that Sony, Panasonic, Rakuten and Kinokuniya have all joined forces on a new digital quest. Today, the quartet of companies announced they're working on a system that would allow users to purchase and read content across their respective e-readers, injecting the e-cosmos with a heavy dose of free love and good vibes. Under the new service, customers would be able to manage their downloads and browse bestsellers within a centralized web-based marketplace, regardless of the device they go to bed with every night. Because within this new universe, there would be no "mine," "yours," or "theirs" -- all will be one and one will be all. The chieftains have already held powows with a handful of digital publishers, though they expect to have more friends around the campfire by the time the project launches later this year.
Comscore says the iPhone now tops RIM in US subscribers
It's probably not a gigantic surprise that Apple has slipped past the RIM BlackBerry phones, but it's a benchmark that should be noted. There may even be a few toasts in Cupertino. Comscore keeps an eye on mobile trends, and a report released today says Apple has increased market share from 24.7% to 26% from January until April of this year. Google (Android) rose 5% to 36.4%, while RIM has 25.7% of smartphone subscribers. Microsoft, even with the addition of its new Windows Phone 7 line, has dropped 1.3% to a 6.7% share. A look at the numbers shows Android on top and gaining market share along with the iPhone, while RIM, Microsoft and Palm are all declining. The report also describe how those polled use their phones. A full 68% of users send text messages, which is the most popular activity. Meanwhile, 39% use a browser, 37% download apps and 26% play games on their phones.
Tim Cook: Tablets will outsell PCs (no kidding)
Goldman Sachs analyst Bill Shope has been talking to Apple's higher-ups lately according to BI (including COO Tim Cook), and that they're extremely bullish on iOS devices, even more so than they've been in the past. That's hardly surprising -- not only would you expect Apple executives to be excited about Apple products, but the iOS platform has been rocketing up anyway. Anyone betting against it at this point would be nuts. Still, Cook specifically is claiming that there's "no reason why the tablet market shouldn't eclipse the PC market over the next several years," according to Shope. And while it seems hard to believe that the much larger PC market could ever be threatened by tablets, that's exactly what's been happening lately anyway. Shope's report says he expects another big increase in iPad sales this quarter, which surely Cook and friends would agree with as well. This also means that we'll see some interesting announcements about iOS 5 next Monday for sure.
More malware in the Android Market: Google removes 26 deleterious app doppelgangers
Ideally, we'd do our smartphone software shopping free from the specter of malicious apps masquerading as useful ones. This past weekend, however, 26 apps in the Android Market were discovered to be packing pernicious code called Droid Dream Light. Apparently, the dastardly devs who made the malware took existing apps and modified them to send details (including IMEI and IMSI info) about the infected handset to a remote server upon receiving a call. The code can also download and cue new package installations, but it needs user approval to do so. Google promptly pulled the offending apps, but their appearance serves as another reminder to be careful when downloading software on your smartphone -- prudence demands minding your app permissions, lest your little green bot start stealing your personal info.
Samsung's new AMOLED production line should help ease smartphone display shortages
AMOLED displays may be in relatively short supply nowadays, but Samsung is doing its best to bridge the gap. Today, the company's Mobile Display unit announced that its 5.5th-generation AMOLED production line is now open, some two months ahead of schedule. The line uses glass substrates that are substantially larger than those found in its existing factories, allowing Samsung to increase output, while lowering costs. This increase in production comes in response to growing demand for the Galaxy S II and an AMOLED market that, according to DisplaySearch, should triple in value this year to $4.26 billion. For now, the production line is focusing on smartphone displays, since that's where demand is growing fastest, but will eventually turn its attention to tablet PC displays, as well. The new factory assembling the displays can currently churn out about three million screens per month, but is capable of ramping that up to 30 million, at full capacity. No word yet on when it will achieve this rate, but if SMD continues to boost its output, we may even see that market surplus we've been hearing about.
Google Maps 5.5 for Android cops more Latitude, tweaks Places and transit pages
Last month we asked for a "funny pages" display in Google's next release of Maps that shows a thick dotted line depicting where we've traveled, but it appears the folks at El Goog had a different agenda in mind for version 5.5. This time around, we see a few redesigns as well as some streamlined Latitude features. First, check-ins and ratings have now been added to the Places page, giving you one extra point of access; you also now have the option of changing your home or work address within your Latitude Location History, in case you ever move or just like to roam from place to place. Last but not least, Google Maps 5.5 for Android also offers reorganized transit station pages that now list off upcoming departures, transit lines serving that particular station, and links to other stops nearby. Though not a substantial upgrade from previous versions, it's still impressive that Google pushed it out less than a month after 5.4. The new update is available as a free download in the Android Market.
Gold Capped: Cataclysm glyph addons
Every week, WoW Insider brings you Gold Capped, in which Basil "Euripides" Berntsen aims to show you how to make money on the auction house. Email Basil with your questions, comments, or hate mail! The glyph market has spawned quite a few of the important modern auction house addons. It's a uniquely challenging market, as there are hundreds of different products, each with their own balance of suppliers, buyers, and materials. The challenges faced by early glyph producers were met by a hodgepodge of fairly complex addons and macros, and only recently have unified solutions began to appear. I remember that at one point, I had addons to: Keep track of how many glyphs I had on the AH, in various characters' banks and in their inventories. Allow me to queue a list of glyphs and build a materials list (that allowed me to buy the vendor mats with one click). Automatically queue enough glyphs in the second addon to assure that I kept stock levels at my desired level. Automatically post every glyph I made onto the AH. The tasks needed for this market are not unique, and so the most important tool that can trace its origin to the glyph market is certainly TradeSkillMaster. TSM is an addon that I've covered before, and it's built from the ground up to be perfect for glyphs. It's also perfect for a lot of other markets, but mostly those you can treat like glyphs.
HP thinks the TouchPad will be 'better than number one,' if that's even possible
HP's expectations for its new TouchPad tablet are running pretty high -- so high, in fact, that they can only be expressed with a make-believe number. During a recent press conference in Cannes, HP's Eric Cador boldly declared that his company's new slate won't just be the best on the market, it'll be the bestest. Cador explained: "In the PC world, with fewer ways of differentiating HP's products from our competitors, we became number one; in the tablet world we're going to become better than number one. We call it number one plus." A spokesman later confirmed that the device will launch in the UK with apps from the Guardian, Sky and Last.fm, but promised that "thousands" of other apps are on the way. The metrics might sound a bit optimistic, but the message is clear: HP thinks the TouchPad will annihilate the iPad and blow our minds to smithereens. We'll just have to wait and see whether it's as explosive as advertised.
Report: Not much has changed in the growing smartphone market
It's that time of the month again -- another report is out from Millenial Media about advertising on the smartphone platforms, with more conclusions about what the market's been up to lately. This month, the big news is... that there's not a lot of big news at all. Apple continues to sit on top of the manufacturers list, Android tops the list of operating systems, and the smartphone market continues to grow, increasing its impressions shares 6 percent month-over-month in the mobile device market as a whole. In fact, for the first time in the history of the report, the top 20 list of devices doesn't list any feature phones at all; it's all smartphones, all the way down. Apple's own share continues to grow. Overall iOS impressions on Millenial's network have increased 47 percent since January, probably due to the release of the white iPhone 4 and the iPad 2. Across all of the advertising revenue collected, iOS accounted for 50 percent, a 6 percent growth month-over-month. This means that even though there are more Android users out there, iOS continues to be more profitable. In general, this hasn't been a very surprising month in the smartphone advertising market. But all of the trends we've seen lately continue to develop in their various directions -- Android keeps getting more users, but Apple's still the one making most of the profits.
Gartner: 1.6 million Windows Phone 7 devices sold in Q1, consumer interest remains tepid
Direct sales figures for Windows Phone 7 handsets have been remarkably difficult to come by since Microsoft's OS reboot at the end of last year, but here come the stat gurus at Gartner to provide us with their best estimate. 3.6 million of the world's smartphone sales in the past quarter were counted under the Microsoft mobile OS umbrella, of which 1.6 million featured the very latest WP7 software. That means Redmond partners sold more Windows Mobile devices in the first three months of 2011 than ones bearing the sparkling new operating system. Guess now we know what LG meant when it said the Windows Phone launch didn't meet expectations. Gartner sees these numbers as evidencing a failure "to grow in consumer preference" by WP7's launch devices, though it predicts better things ahead, with Nokia's participation helping to accelerate the platform's momentum. For more (much more!) stats relating to the global cellphone market in Q1 2011, click on the source link for Gartner's full disclosure. Update: ZDNet's Mary Jo Foley prodded Microsoft about these figures, but got neither a confirmation nor a denial. The fact Redmond didn't bother to at least dispute Gartner's stats seems to lend them an added sliver of credibility.
Hands-on with Netflix for Android (video)
Netflix for Android is here... finally. It's been a long time coming and we're thrilled to be able to bring our instant queue with us wherever we go. Though technically only approved for a handful of HTC phones and the Samsung Nexus S, we were able to successfully get it up and running on at least one unsanctioned device -- the Droid X (sporting a leaked copy of Gingerbread). So what's Netflix like on Google's mobile OS? Well, it's a heck of a lot like the iPhone app. In fact, you'd be hard pressed to tell them apart if it weren't for the tabs being moved from the bottom of the screen to the top. Still, we figured it was worth giving a solid once over and, as usual, you can find our impressions after the break. %Gallery-123575%
Adobe CreatePDF for Android does exactly what its name implies
Google's mobile OS is growing and maturing into a business-savvy adult before our very eyes. With the release of Adobe's CreatePDF in the Android Market, we're delighted to finally see a PDF-creation app on the mobile front. Not only does it let you build a PDF from the ground up, it can convert most popular filetypes -- Word, Excel, Powerpoint, OpenOffice, Photoshop, RTF, and Illustrator, just to name a few -- into PDF format. You can import any of these kinds of docs from your phone to app via the built-in file manager, or transfer an email attachment to it using Android's share function. Available for a one-time payment of $9.99, CreatePDF won't be for the light-walleted or the casual app enthusiast; don't be put off by the price, though, because the online version charges that much per month to do the exact same tasks on your computer. Anyone rocking Eclair or better can partake of the PDF love, so head to the source link to get straight to installing.
Google TV getting Android 3.1 and Market this summer; Sony, Vizio, Samsung and Logitech onboard
As expected, Google just announced at I/O that the Google TV will be upgraded to Android 3.1 this summer (existing devices will get an OTA upgrade) with access to the Market coming "soon." According to Mike Cleron from the Android Development team, developers will be able to use the vanilla Honeycomb SDK to build apps for Google TV, and also announced hardware partners will include Samsung, Vizio, Logitech and Sony (as seen after the break) -- no word on previously mentioned possibles like Toshiba, Sharp or LG. There were also no details on a switch from Intel to ARM even though we heard whispers of that at CES, we'll check in to the keynote tomorrow to see if there's any more revealed on hardware changes for the platform. Check the liveblog for more info.
DoubleTwist upgrade features AirPlay support for more Apple / Android miscegenation
Add another notch to DoubleTwist's Apple ecosystem integration belt, now that its Android app has added AirPlay streaming to the list of features. As of version 1.4 it will stream music, videos or pictures to the Apple TV or other compatible devices while also claiming beta support for Sonos hardware. The DoubleTwist player is free, but using AirPlay means purchasing the $4.99 AirSync add-on that also enables wireless sync with your media library (iTunes) and streaming to DLNA or uPnP compatible devices. Twonky Mobile is a free alternative that's also AirPlay-compatible but without the tight iTunes integration; you can check them both out in the market.
