Dec 23, 2008 10:33 am US/Central NEW YORK No sense just using what comes in the box with your new cell phone or digital camera when you can enhance your enjoyment with the latest accessories.
President-elect Barack Obama should allocate $15 billion for a nationwide wireless broadband network, according to a federally designated organization that holds a license to create such a network for public ...
Alvarion Ltd. , the world's leading provider of WiMAX and wireless broadband solutions, today announced that Linkem Spa, Italy's leading wireless broadband service provider and nationwide WiMAX license holder, ...
From the far side of the world Sony New Zealand is telling us that a new Vaio is coming.
Now, just two months after the launch, the rumor mill is churning around a T-Mobile G2 that may remedy some of the first version's shortcomings. T-Mobile was not immediately available for comment on the timing of a G1 successor.
"There's certainly going to be a G2, G3, G4 ... we'll see continued iterations beyond the G1," said Michael Gartenberg, vice president of mobile strategy at Jupitermedia. "The first iteration of the hardware itself wasn't nearly as stunning as some of the other devices on the market. It was a little clunky, a little brick-like."
The G1's Cool Features
The G1 phone touts touchscreen functionality, a QWERTY keyboard, and a Google-centric mobile-Web experience. The G1 builds on the promise of the Google mobile operating system, which gives users access to the Android Market. There, customers can find and download applications to expand and personalize the HTC-made handset.
The G1 is loaded with Google Search, Google Maps, Google Street View, Gmail, YouTube and other popular Google software that PC users are familiar with. The phone launched with price tags starting at $179 for some existing customers, with a two-year voice and data agreement.
With one-click contextual search, users can search with the touch of a finger. A full HTML Web browser lets users see any Web page the way it was designed to be seen, and then zoom in to expand any section by tapping on the screen. Users who don't want to launch applications and calls with the touchscreen can use a trackball device for one-handed navigation.
What the G1 Is Missing
If you aren't a Google customer -- or if you don't...
Google is giving its employees a taste of its own Kool-Aid by passing out Android-based mobile phones to at least 85 percent of employees, a person described as "familiar with the matter" told Bloomberg News.
"The current economic crisis requires us to be more conservative about how we spend our money," Google said in an internal memo that was posted on technology industry blog Valleywag.com.
Because the phone will not work in more than one dozen countries, including Turkey, Kenya, Brazil, Russia and India, Google is instead giving $400 to employees in those countries, which is the cash value of the phone.
Cash-Strapped or Celebration of Android?
Gone are the days of huge cash bonuses and all-expenses-paid holiday weekend trips to the Caribbean.
Instead, companies are finding ways to cut costs, making drastic changes including cutting thousands of jobs, cutting back on plans to expand, and spinning off other businesses in order to turn around a profit for shareholders -- and in an effort to stay afloat.
Adobe Systems, Viacom, AT&T and Circuit City are just some of the companies that have cut between 600 and 5,000 employees in recent weeks.
Google, while successful, has also felt the pinch of the economic downturn and has also had to scale back. Last month, the company quietly cut a reported 3,000 contract positions.
So Google's explanation behind its move should not be shocking to employees.
"Some of you will of course be wondering why we decided to change from a cash bonus to the Dream phone," Google states in the posted memo. "Here are the reasons: First, we've never developed anything like the Android software before and this represented...
According to MacRumors.com, which has been a central focal point for the rumors, there are some items of possible evidence -- as well as some doubts.
Rumors from China
On the "possible evidence" side, MacRumors.com showed a screenshot from the Web site of an iPhone case manufacturer, XSKN. The screenshot shows a "Browse by Category" menu of phone model choices, which, under iPhone, includes "iPhone nano" as well as iPhone 3G and "iPhone 1st Gen."
The credibility for this evidence, MacRumors noted, is that XSKN began selling cases earlier this year for the iPhone 3G, before it was released. In September, it showed case images of unreleased fourth-generation iPod nano designs, prior to that model's release.
Although XSKN has not published images specifically identified as the iPhone nano, a company called iDealsChina has. Commentary on iDealsChina's site noted that China is the place these rumors often start because the "thousands of people involved in building iPhone components" means information will get out. This information, the commentary noted, can mean "millions of dollars, if you get it right and you get it early," for "accessory manufacturers and agents in China" who will then decide whether and when to produce accompanying items.
In a posting dated December 15, iDealsChina contended that a variety of companies are currently producing cases for the new iPhone nano. It quoted other sites as suggesting that the new iPhone would have a control dial with a pull-out keypad, but no 3G. iDealsChina also contended that the iPhone nano will be targeted at those who are looking for a lower price point, will be sold in such stores as Walmart, and will be launched...
With the official launch of iPrint Photo, HP becomes the first company to offer an application that prints photos directly from an iPod touch or iPhone without using a desktop or laptop computer. iPrint Photo lets consumers wirelessly print 4 x 6-inch photos from the Apple devices to most HP inkjet printers connected to a local Wi-Fi network.
Uncaging iPhone Photos
The HP iPrint Photo application aims to give customers the freedom and flexibility to wirelessly print the photos that have been captured on iPhone or iPod touch devices. The application will be showcased for the first time at the 2009 Macworld Conference & Expo and the 2009 Consumer Electronics Show (CES).
The iPrint Photo application is fully compatible with Apple's Bonjour technology and uses Apple's Multi-Touch interface for a wireless iPhone or iPod touch print experience.
"There's a major shift happening in the mobile domain today," said Rob Enderle, president and principal analyst at the Enderle Group. "Annual camera phone device shipments are exploding on a worldwide basis, and mobile photo printing is quickly growing. Until now, customers had no easy way to print the special moments captured on their iPhone or stored on their iPod touch."
An App Store Explosion
HP isn't the only brand making headlines this week with its App Store induction. Kraft Foods also launched an application for the iPhone: the iFood Assistant. The new application offers users access to food and meal planning ideas. The Kraft app is available for 99 cents.
Last week, Big Canvas launched HolidayFrames, an application that allows users to customize photos on the iPhone and iPod touch with holiday-themed photo frames. That application costs $1.99....
The Storm, released in November, is the first touchscreen smartphone from RIM, potentially Apple's largest competitor. Many observers have touted it as RIM's answer to the iPhone. The survey, taken December 9-15, queried nearly 4,000 current smartphone owners about their phones.
iPhone Up, BlackBerry Steady
According to the survey, the iPhone's current market share is 23 percent this month, an increase from the 17 percent market share shown in a similar survey in September, and more than twice its share when the 3G model was launched in June. BlackBerry's market share, including all models, is 43 percent in December, compared with 40 percent in September.
This compares with figures from last January, when the iPhone registered a six percent market share and BlackBerry was 43 percent.
Some observers have noted that Apple's rise is apparently coming at the expense of other handset makers. Palm had an 18 percent market share in January 2008, but this month it's down to nine percent. Motorola's dropped from seven percent in January to four percent this month.
Going forward, though, the Storm may yet make waves for the iPhone. For survey respondents who planned on purchasing a new smartphone in the next three months, 39 percent intended to buy a BlackBerry, an increase of nine percent over September's numbers. About 30 percent intended to buy an iPhone, down four percent from September.
Inside and Outside U.S. Market
However, the same survey found that only about 33 percent of the Storm's owners were "very satisfied" with their purchase, while 77 percent of the purchasers of the original iPhone had been. The comparison was made...
The idea of setting up networks to beam wireless Internet access across entire cities and towns has been touted for years as a spur to economic development. It also has been promoted as a way to help bridge the digital divide -- the gap between those who have access to the Internet and other digital technology and those who don't, mainly because of lower income.
Progress on such networks has been halting, however, because of financial, technical and political hurdles. Over the past year or so, there has been a string of reversals. The companies that built and maintained some of the most prominent municipal Wi-Fi networks abandoned them, and other projects stalled or were scaled back.
At the same time, though, a handful of communities have applied lessons learned from the first round of failed projects and are developing Wi-Fi networks that are more realistic in their ambitions and business models.
"This was about a business model that simply didn't work," said Rolla Huff, chief executive of EarthLink, after the Internet service provider announced in May that it would stop serving the Wi-Fi network it had built in Philadelphia, a project that inspired communities across the country to initiate similar efforts.
"It was a great idea," said Huff. "It wasn't a great business."
EarthLink put itself in a financial hole from the start by setting up the network at its own expense, and then the service didn't attract enough users to offset that investment and the costs of operating the network. In the meantime, other cities followed Philadelphia's example, getting Internet service providers to cover most or all of the cost of setting up Wi-Fi networks.
"That's where all of these cities got into trouble," said...
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