Android May Finally Be Ready For Prime Time

Once upon a time, just about everyone owned a Motorola RAZR. In fact when RAZRs were popular, Motorola and their industrial design were the player to beat in the cell phone industry. A lot has changed since then: the standard cell phone market has declined significantly, smart phones instead have become ubiquitous, and a company by the name of Apple created a phone...I think I've seen some things about it.

This is not to say room doesn't still exist for the once mighty Motorola, however. As I wrote a few weeks ago, Apple's proclivity to claim openness but remain closed has allowed the king of free, Google to slip in the door by creating their own mobile computing platform...Android. Like the iPhone when in its infancy, Android was plagued with lukewarm receptions but buoyed by the hope of what might be. After all, a lower cost open source mobile platform with a supportive developer base could be just what device makers like Motorola need to compete with leaders Microsoft and Apple....right? Fortunately for Google and its partners, it looks as though the platform is finally catching up to the hype. A major development is the release of Android 2.0, which boasts a number of impressive features including full native Microsoft Exchange support, Facebook integration for contact management, and better performance...generally placing Android on par with the iPhone OS.

What does this have to do with Motorola? You might have had your Sunday afternoon television viewing interrupted with an odd commercial...one that started like an Apple ad, but certainly didn't end like one. Motorola is releasing a new device based on Google's Android OS called Droid, and this commercial is the start of Verizon and Motorola's new marketing campaign targeted squarely at Apple and the iPhone. What's more, it sounds as though Motorola's new phone may be the beginning of a resurgence for the company. "The most impressive phone we've used since the iPhone" sums it up nicely. Combine that with the fact that this device carries a keyboard and Verizon's more reliable network (something iPhone users crave) and you may have a winner. If this is true, it means that the software and hardware finally exists in concert to make Android a real and robust mobile computing platform...and it may be time to begin thinking of the smart phone market as a three horse race.

Do Google and Apple Need Each Other?

To say that the once fruitful relationship between the jewels of Cupertino and Mountain View has become strained is an understatement. First, it was the unveiling of Google's new mobile computing platform, Android, that ruffled Apple's feathers. Next, it was the announcement that Google would soon be entering another of Apple's markets with the development of their Chrome OS. This led to the ouster of Google's CEO from Apple's board, and a subsequent investigation by the FTC for "remaining interlocking directorates". As if that wasn't enough, there was then the "small" issue of Google Voice's entrance (and immediate exit) from Apple's App Store, leading to a full FCC investigation and very public "he said, she said" between AT&T, Google, and Apple. The past week has shown that the two companies are quite obviously distancing themselves from one another, with Apple acquiring Google Maps competitor Placebase, and today's announcement of Google's partnership with AT&T competitor Verizon to further drive penetration of its Android platform.

Strategic partnerships between two large entities are often built on shaky ground to begin with, in particular when those companies are in the same industry. It doesn't help that both Google and Apple are growing at alarming rates, and I suppose one might argue that some infringement upon each other's territory might have been unavoidable. It begs the question though, does either company benefit (or at least lose less) from the bickering and potential loss of the partnership? Apple once again seems destined to fight the battle of platform dependancy against platform agnosticism, and much like it was when Apple and Microsoft battled in the early days of personal computing I think Google may have the upper hand. They are not tied to a specifc business model, a specific audience, or a specific hardware/software platform in most instances. Google has the ability to plug their solutions into a extraordinary amount of places, allowing them to weather the loss of a partnership like they have with Apple...even if that partnership provides them with hooks into arguably the most popular mobile device available. Apple, on the other hand relies more heavily on quality rather than quantity. They depend upon the control of the entire stack of a product to succeed, and I fear will have a much harder time finding pieces to fill in the holes that Google leaves open in their product base. Regardless of its history, Apple seems destined to fall into the same interoperability trap set by Microsoft many years ago. It's ironic that despite their corporate motto, it may be Google that plays the villan this time.

Which Google Apps Will Make it to ChromeOS?

Today I received an invite to Google Voice, the new service that aims to put your phone where Google wants everything else: in their cloud. The service actually seems quite useful, if it wasn't for the fact that it's not easy these days to change your number in friends' contact lists...but that's not the topic of this post, only the genesis. As I navigated to Google Voice through their Apps pages, I was taken aback at the sheer number listed there. I mean, there are over 40 different apps and services in the Google stable these days. 40. When did this happen? This got me thinking, with Google's announcement of a new lightweight OS...which of these will make the cut when ChromeOS goes prime time?

No Brainers:
I don't care if Larry Page or Larry the Cable Guy is managing this product (see what I did there?). There's no way these aren't making it into the final version of ChromeOS in some form or another.

Chrome (Duh)
Docs
Gmail
Desktop
Reader
Talk


They're in...right?:
It's like Tiger at the Master's. He's gonna be in the last group on Sunday...right? It's almost a sure thing.

Calendar
Reader
Earth/Maps
Voice
YouTube


Contenders:
More of a Chicago Cubs situation. They're good, but just don't seem to have the pieces together. Yes, I'm going to keep the sports analogies rolling...deal with it.

Blogger
Finance
Translate
Picasa
Checkout


Fat Chance:
Seeing these products in the final version of ChromeOS is about as likely as a BCS playoff. I don't care what the President wants.

Orkut
Knol
GOOG-411
Health
Groups

We still don't know much (or really anything) about the new OS, but it stands to reason that Google will heavily leverage their existing portfolio of applications and services. To what extent, I'm guessing not even Larry Page...or Larry the Cable Guy, knows for certain.

Social Media and the Culture of Change

It's been a turbulent 2009 for many social media stalwarts. Facebook has battled users over it's new Twitter-like interface, and its broadly bemoaned change in terms of service. After last year's SXSW introduction, Twitter has exploded in usage, growing to 19 million visitors a month. More recently News Corp, the parent company of MySpace has ousted the current executive team in favor of new CEO Owen Van Natta (resulting in this hilarious screenshot). Flickr and Digg continue to outpace many in the field while the popularity of delicious and linkedin have begun to wane. In a world where social networking covers everything from uploading videos to youtube, to rating your respective internships...it seems that in this space disruption, turbulence, and above all: change, is the norm.

For individuals, the matter is somewhat cut and dry. Which of these sites provides me with some kind of value? Which and how many of these sites do I want to use or are able to use efficiently? Obviously, with the immense growth in this space keeping track of the latter can even be difficult if not impossible, but aggregators like ping.fm and FriendFeed are stepping in to help you wade through the madness. I, for one believe that social networking's usefulness, as well as the usefulness of the internet in general, lies not only in the value provided to users, but the overall aggregation and organization of data from multiple sources into easy to find resources. The internet has grown to an enormous size, and even search engines like Google are finding it more and more difficult to provide you with the information you want (Enter the idea of semantic web technologies, and answer engines).

For businesses, the obvious question is "how can these technologies drive growth and more importantly, revenue?" Unfortunately, answering this is a bit like hitting a moving target. Forecasting and postulating around stable technology environments is often difficult, but doing so in a world where Monday looks nothing like Friday...well, that's daunting at best. The good news: it's easy to recognize that the strength of these systems is the ability to organize enormous amounts of people around ideas, interests, likes, dislikes, where they live, etc. What's more, that ability to organize globally (something that was historically nearly impossible) is free to leverage in a wide variety of ways. For instance, California based Benziger Winery provides their Facebook friends with information on current sales, harvest schedule, and events through status updates. Cisco's CTO publishes updates on her activities and the activities of her company through her Twitter account. The bad news? Falling behind here puts you at an exponentially increasing disadvantage against those who are embracing it. The difference between the winners and losers is not only leveraging a cost efficient way to market and communicate...but the ability to control that message rather than someone controlling it for you.

3.0 Firmware Lists New iPhone, iPod Touch Entries

As soon as developers get their hands on new firmware, we always seem to learn something interesting hidden in all the ones and zeros. Boy Genuis today reported that multiple new device ID references were uncovered in the 3.0 firmware released to developers this week. This brings more weight to the idea I mentioned yesterday that new hardware was likely arriving this Summer.

iPhone 3.0 Teased Today in Cupertino

As mentioned, Apple announced a major revision to the iPhone/iPod touch OS platform today and detailed many of the new features headed our way this Summer. Remember all the complaints people had about copy and paste? Gone. MMS? Done. How about push notifications? No longer. Engadget of course blew out their coverage of the event today (I pounded refresh over my lunch hour too...it's OK), but an overview of new features is below:

• Peer-to-peer connectivity over Bluetooth
  
• New fee based system for in game purchases and add ons
  
• Google Maps API opened for apps...AND YES: TURN BY TURN NAVIGATION.
  
• The dock interface has been opened up and can now be utilized by apps (QWERTY keyboard undoubtedly forthcoming)
  
• Sweet, sweet push notifications...but no background processing
  
• In game voice, streaming video and audio implemented
• Cut, copy and paste
  
• MMS - Allows sending of location, contacts, etc.
  
• Stereo Bluetooth
• Spotlight search from a new home screen
  
• TETHERING. Sweet lord above we get tethering
• New app - Voice Memos will allow you to record reminders
• The Stocks app is updated for news and a landscape view
  
• New calendar features - CalDAV and .ics subscriptions

Based on this release and last year's events...I think it's a pretty safe bet that we will see a hardware revision coincide with the official release of 3.0 this Summer. As Nilay Patel has mentioned, Apple's made it fairly clear that they want a consistent platform for developers...so it could simply be a spec bump and slightly different form factor. The weather has just turned warm here...but suddenly I'm ready for June.

iPhone 3.0 Preview...Tomorrow

Tomorrow, Apple will be outlining the new features in its latest major revision of the iPhone OS. I'll stop by tomorrow evening to give my thoughts...

Speaking of Boxee...

Boxee's blog announced that their remote control app is finally through Apple approval and available in the app store. Price = free. Duh.

http://www.boxee.tv/

Boxee Gives My DVR Abandonment Issues

Boxee has generated a great deal of interest lately, as its public battle with online TV provider Hulu has provided more than one "three snaps in zig-zag formation" type reaction over the past month. Hulu, a joint online venture between Fox and NBC provides free streaming access to shows on those networks as well as their affiliates and associated partners. The content comes with short commercial breaks, hence the free nature. The service has become extraordinarily popular as it provides a fairly high quality viewing experience, on demand, FOR FREE.

Enter Boxee. Boxee for those unfamiliar, is a free media center software package that currently runs on Mac and Linux builds and is essentially an aggregator of all the free video and audio content available on the web. Its slick interface, social networking tilt, and ease of use has made it popular with many streaming media lovers. What's more, Boxee created a straightforward process to load its software onto Apple TV devices, providing a great source of media to those users as well. With Hulu being an Internet media streamer and Boxee being a streaming media aggregator...it seemed like a tiny thing for Hulu content to reside in the Boxee interface for all to enjoy. After all...you still watch the show with all the provider's intended commercials, what could go wrong? Well, in a word...everything. Hulu (read: Fox and NBC) have waged a technical war of hack and defend upon Boxee to block their software from providing content to their users. Boxee has retorted by working around the hindrance only to be blocked again. Only time will tell if NBC will come to its senses and realize that Boxee is driving more users to its content (and ads) than before.

Regardless..with or without Hulu, Boxee is an amazing piece of software. The ability to utilize the Apple remote to control, pause, and rewind content is a welcome addition. The ability to link Boxee to Twitter and FriendFeed while keeping your Boxee friends abreast of your recommended shows is a nice feature as well. For me, this is the future of media distribution. I'm willing to watch a commercial here and there (breaks are usually a single commercial) for the flexibility both Hulu and Boxee provide. The ability to provide on-demand content from major media sources at any time, on any network enabled device is extraordinarily powerful. In fact, as a self described TV junky...I'm feeling more attached to Boxee and my laptop than I am to my DVR.

Ping.fm & Pingle: All Your Status Updates are Belong to Us

There are a lot of social networking sites out there. Like, WAY too many. Unfortunately, this means that you likely don't keep up with every one of your friends through the same site, necessitating many different accounts. Each service has the ability to integrate with others (for example, twitter can simultaneously update Facebook) but you'd need a 350 million dollar Visio diagram to remember how it all fits together. If you're like me, this means you update Facebook by default and tend to neglect MySpace, Twitter, etc. Do not fear, Ping.fm is here to help. A web based aggregator designed to stitch together every imaginable IM, blog, and social networking site, ping.fm allows you to update each and every one in a single step. Ping.fm has a staggering list of supported sites, but major players are Facebook, FriendFeed, MySpace, flickr, linkedin, blogger, twitter...you get the idea. The service allows you to update via SMS, email, and IM in addition to the web portal, but you can also utilize a mobile application created by Curious Squid called Pingle. Pingle is one of the better Ping.fm implementations around, providing a quick way to update your services by category, (blogs, social networks, microblogs, etc.) or by single service. The app also shows you history and allows you to integrate photos and location into your updates or "pings". For instance, you can take a photo and add it to your facebook, myspace, twitter, and flickr pages all in one step. I'm not sure that demand can sustain the myriad sites that exist in these spaces, but in the interim aggregator sites like Ping.fm and FriendFeed can quickly make you a more efficient social butterfly.

Virtualization: What's Old is New Again, Kind Of

Back in the day, the computer sitting on your desk wasn't a computer at all. Mainframe terminals of the day ran very simple client software designed to simply connect, receive and send information, all in glorious shades of, well...just green. In fact, little of the horsepower was local, but resided inside a data center far away...sort of, like...I don't know...a cloud? Sound familiar?

These days, "cloud computing" and virtualization are the focus of many IT shops around the country as companies search desperately to cut costs and reduce IT assets. Both technologies lend themselves towards a model in which processing occurs in a central location, typically a data center, but often "cloud computing" refers to the utilization of a specific application, while virtualization refers to the execution of the entire operating system. Make no mistake however, while these technologies are suddenly popular in the age of Kanye West...the ideas themselves are straight up Doug E. Fresh. However, virtualization has come a long way, vendors such as VMWare, RngCube, and MokaFive have turned old school virtualizaion on its head, allowing central management of operating system images, while the processing itself occurs on the client's end point machine. The genius here is that you don't have to be connected to the local network (or any network) to get data to and from the VM, hence the ability to run VMs anywhere, anytime.

Recently VMWare announced that they've taken it a step further with their Mobile Virtual Platform, which obviously has the awesome acronym "MVP". When initially announced, the platform was a touch vaporware, as we saw no working prototypes to speak of. That all changed this week at VMWorld in Europe, as details surfaced on the platform itself, including video of a phone running both Android and Windows Mobile via the MVP client software. With current phone specs heading toward the stratosphere of performance, VMWare has timed this introduction well. A platform of this type could allow developers to reach an extraordinarily larger audience, and may allow consumers to focus more on the hardware when choosing a phone rather than the operating system. In addition, it brings carriers and companies who support these devices one step closer to a device agnostic mind set, one in which we the consumers have a much greater level of flexibility in our purchasing choices. And to think, it all started with a mainframe terminal...luckily we have more colors this time around.

I'm testing an application called "Pingle" for the iPhone. It allows you to utilize the ping.fm service to update a huge number of social sites and blogs...

iPhone App Review: Wunder Radio

I've only just recently started paying for apps on my iPhone. I had always previously trended towards the free sections of the App Store and for the most part always found something that suited my needs. In that vein, I've tried a number of free radio applications on the iPhone, and still love the streaming music of Pandora (who wouldn't?), but the features of Weather Underground's Wunder Radio application actually make this app worth the $5.99 price tag. You might wonder why a weather website has released a radio application, it seems as though they initially wanted an application that provided streaming weather to as many areas of the country as possible. What they ended up with was a portal to 60,000 radio stations and other content feeds. The app is available now in the App Store and has an efficient and well organized interface. You can find radio stations by way of category, region, or even stations close to you. The application offers you "station like this" in the "now playing" screen, and also often allows you a choice of stream type and bit rates along with their respective reliability. This comes in handy if you find your stream dropping in a certain location, there may be a lower quality one available that is more reliable. One of my favorite features is the police, fire, and emergency scanners available inside the application. You can listen to basically any metro police scanner in the country, including my hometown of Davenport. The Chicago scanner is riveting, and provides a lot of entertainment. You can also plug-in to Dallas' air traffic control stream which is also quite interesting. The bottom line is that this is a really great radio application with features warranting the $6 price tag...Oh yeah, it also gives you the weather.

The President Reads This Blog

NOT Photo-shopped.


The proof is undeniable...after my post yesterday providing my thoughts on the broadband pieces of the economic stimulus package. Reuters today released this statement from the White House:

Stimulus 1st Step in Obama's Broadband Goals


Thanks for stopping by, Mr. President.

Broadband Stimulus Creates Plan for Most Expensive Visio Diagram Ever

Look, for the most part I think the stimulus plan is a really good idea, and while I think the amount of spending (infrastructure spending in particular) versus tax cuts falls woefully short of what it should be, the bill seems to be putting money in the right places. One of the aforementioned places I have been keeping close tabs on is the amount allocated to broadband growth. Even for those not closely familiar with technology, it is not a stretch to see just how broadband communications can greatly affect our country's progress. Better communications sparks better collaboration, faster research, but more importantly...one could argue that our nation's network connectivity drives the ideals of egalitarianism that initially grew from the advent of the printing press long ago. Our ability to communicate and organize easily is "flattening" our world in ways that we honestly haven't even realized.

Gigaom and the SF Chronicle have good overviews of the bill as passed. Here are some highlights:


7.2 billion dollars - This is a decent compromise between the two bills. Unfortunately the money is split up into two grants that don't have to be allocated until 2010.

No speed requirements - This is not a good development. Initially the bill had aggressive verbiage regarding the standard definition of "broadband". This has since been stricken as legislators decided to focus on availability. I see this as a focus on rural and underdeveloped communities.

Broadband penetration map - This is a great idea and needed...but seriously, 350 million?? I'll have one on your desk by the end of the year for free Mountain Dew and Miller Lite.

Bloody Monday

For those of you who thought things couldn't possibly get any worse than they were in October, for those out there that thought December was the absolute bottom...for those who have continued to throw money at the market while telling themelves "the price is so low!"...it got worse today.

Yes, today many major companies put together a "Happy Monday" party by demolishing some 70,000 jobs in their respective areas. Based on the timing of the layoffs, the Bobs were obviously not involved. One layoff in particular caught my eye today, that of U.S. monster corporation Caterpillar's layoff of some 20,000 employees...no, that's not a typo. CAT had planned to layoff 15,000 employees as of 4Q 2008, but today upped that number to approximately 20% of their workforce. If that doesn't frighten you, you are probably already unemployed.

I was considering my own employment and mortality today after hearing this news and initially thought to myself..."Hey, if I'm going to be broke it might as well be somewhere warm like California." Only one problem: Could I even dump my house? Remember the real start of this mess? You know, the housing market? We're exacerbating the very cause of our own downturn. This cycle is nasty. Layoffs beget lower spending, and lower spending...well, we know what that means.

Blogged with the Flock Browser

The NSA has your Email

I realize Olbermann can be biased, but this story scares me to death.

Push Versus Pull - How We Get Content

Relative to television, modern computing and certainly modern networked computing is but a baby to us. We have a long way to go towards realizing the full potential of being ridiculously connected to everyone and everything. I find it interesting in this regard, when looking at the way we receive content from each of these mediums. Television has always been predominantly a "push" mechanism, where we are allowed a number of channels to pick from, and a programming director decides what to "push" to us each and every day (I would prefer they push less "Two and a Half Men" reruns). Globally networked computing however, began as a "pull" mechanism with users determining what content they required, locating it, and pulling it from the source. Just as these two medium began in opposite directions, they are now also continuing to move as such. Television has begun and continues to allow users to "pull" more staged content from pay-per-view, on-demand, and streaming sources like netflix and AppleTV. Computers and the internet on the other hand, seem directed towards providing more "push" functionality through RSS and other data feeds like FriendFeed.

Why are two pieces of technology, moving in such opposite paths? It may have something to do with the fact that each of their functionality and usages are converging. What do consumers want? Well, everything. It's obvious that devices and their functions are all on a collision course. Consumers want a device that is a phone, and a TV, and a web browser. Both TV and computer makers are obliging: As television becomes a networked computing device, and computers have conversely become a high definition DVRs. I doubt that there will ever be a device we use for everything, all the time...but I do imagine that most all devices will soon do pretty much everything.

Netbooks and Smart Phones Head Towards a Showdown - Miyagi Unimpressed

After seeing the marketing around Sony's new Vaio P and how it supposedly fits in a pocket, Engadget's Josh Topolski had a interesting thought during an interview with Jimmy Fallon of all people at this year's CES. It sure seems that while smart phones are converging towards laptop (netbook) functionality, laptops (netbooks) are converging towards smart phone functionality and form factor. This sort of begs the question, if the end game is two classes of devices similarly priced with similar functionality, why would we need both? Netbooks seem to be gaining popularity as consumers realize that they need ultra-portability, a full keyboard, and serviceable screen real estate. Smart phones are becoming ubiquitous because they can provide all the functionality once had from laptops in a form factor that can be brought with you everywhere. As the impending showdown draws nearer, it will be interesting to see which of these platforms becomes the norm, and which is relegated to niche market status.