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Confused about Android Phones?

The Bionic was supposed to be positioned as Verizon Wireless' flagship 4G LTE smartphone--the first with a dual-core processor--when it launched in early September. But its reign barely lasted a month, and following several recent announcements, it may not even rank as the third-bestAndroid phone in Verizon's lineup by November.

The speed in which new Android devices are hitting the market speaks to the strength of Google's mobile platform. But it also leads to a lot of headaches for consumers who can be overwhelmed by the sheer number of options emerging every day. It's like the Best Buy commercial parodying the next great device coming out moments after you buy it, only it's playing out in real life.

The Motorola Droid Razr was in the spotlight for a few hours.

Handset manufacturers can't like the pace either.

They spend millions of dollar of research and development on the hot new device, only to lose the spotlight after a few days (or, in the case of the Droid Razr, a few hours).

"This sort of churn bothers both consumers and OEMs, for whom such a cycle is costly and, arguably, wasteful," said Roger Kay, an analyst for Endpoint Technologies.

For simplicity's sake, let's just look at Verizon's lineup for the holidays. In the past, the carrier has focused its marketing efforts on one big phone, known in the industry as a halo device, since the buzz around it often draws in consumers and drives the sales of other phones.

It was a short reign for the Droid Bionic.

(Credit:Motorola)

Past results have been mixed. The first Droid by Motorola was a smash hit, and helped propel Android into the mainstream. Prior to that was the BlackBerry Storm, which sold well but was plagued with glitches and a clunky user interface. Back then, customers knew exactly what was the phone to get.

That strategy has now been thrown out the window, as Verizon has at least four to five high-profile smartphones to offer for the holidays, one seemingly looking to top the preceding one.

Yesterday, Verizon and Motorola jointly unveiled the Droid Razr, a dual-core 4G LTE smartphone that boasts a thinner profile than theiPhone 4S. It represents a massive upgrade over the Droid Bionic, which just hit the market a month ago.

Granted, the Bionic suffered a well-documented series of delays, and should have technically hit the market in the second quarter. But the extra time to redesign the phone and bring it to market seems wasted with the introduction of the Razr. Why would anyone buy the Bionic now?

Several hours after the Razr unveiling, Google and Samsung showed off the Galaxy Nexus, the first smartphone running on Ice Cream Sandwich, which is the latest version of Android. The upgraded operating system is the first to integrate both smartphone andtablet user interfaces, and comes with a raft of new features. The Galaxy Nexus will run on LTE and is expected to also come to Verizon.


Does anybody remember the Stratosphere?A few days ago the Galaxy S II phones were among the hottest. Not anymore.

The Galaxy Nexus comes on the heels of the Stratosphere, which just launched last week as part of Samsung's flagship Galaxy S II line of Android mobile devices. Samsung clearly took pains to customize the Verizon version of its popular Galaxy S II phone, adding a keyboard and LTE compatibility, yet it is already selling at a discount at various retailers.

For Verizon, having such a robust lineup--which includes the recently launched iPhone 4S--is a boon, and a stark contrast from the older basic cell phone days, when the hottest devices only ran on the GSM network used by AT&T and T-Mobile USA. Gadget bloggers, and tech journalists such as myself, love the torrent of new devices because it means more to write about.

But the rate at which these new super smartphones are emerging is dizzying. That run of phones doesn't even include the wave of devices hitting the market with the other major carriers. People often hold off purchasing new phones so they can see what's coming ahead; with such a steady flow of new products, they may end up paralyzed with indecision.

It sounds counterintuitive, but the Android world, customers, and handset manufacturers included, could stand to see fewer launches of the next big thing.

Source: http://news.cnet.com/8301-1035_3-20122716-94/android-super-smartphones-too-much-of-a-good-thing/?tag=rtcol;dis

Google Doodle: Tribute to Mary Blair

Search giant Google on Friday marked the 100th birth anniversary of American artist Mary Blair - best remembered for her work with The Walt Disney Company - with one of its patented Doodles.

Visitors to Google's homepage were greeted with a stylized logo reminiscent of Blair's art style.

As in the past, clicking on the Google Doodle will take the visitor to a Google search results page on "Mary Blair."

Mary Robinson Blair was born on Oct. 21, 1911 in Oklahoma and worked in the animation industry, according to an article on Techie-Buzz.com.

She began her lifelong multifaceted art career in the 1930’s as a member of the prestigious California Watercolor Society, according to the MagicofMaryBlair.com website.

By 1940, she was working for Walt Disney and in 1941 her passionate “explosion of color" style began to emerge during the Disney Studios “South American Goodwill Tour."

She continued to make extensive contributions to the “world" of Walt Disney off and on for over 30 years. Some of the films she influenced include:

Johnny Appleseed, 1948

Cinderella, 1950

Alice in Wonderland, 1951

Susie the Little Blue Coupe, 1952

Little House, 1952

Peter Pan, 1953

Her passion for painting children began at home, with her own two sons – Donovan, born in 1947 and Kevin, born three years later in 1950.

In the late 1950s and early 1960s, she worked on multiple commercial art projects in her home studio in Great Neck New York.

In the 1970s, she expressed herself through texture, color and collage art.

Techie-Buzz said Blair won several awards, including:

1991: the Disney Legend award

1996: the Winsor McCay award from ASIFA-Hollywood.

Google and Samsung's Ice Cream Sandwich Galaxy Nexus

Samsung Electronics and Google took the wraps off the Galaxy Nexus, the latestAndroid handset to carry the flagship smartphone moniker.

The smartphone, unveiled at a Samsung event in Hong Kong today, marks the debut of the latest version of Android, known as Ice Cream Sandwich (each iteration of Android is named after a dessert).

For Samsung, the introduction of another flagship Google phone underscores its growing influence as an Android vendor. While the company was slow to shift away from basic phones and move into the smartphone game, it has more than made up for lost time with the success of its Galaxy line of Android mobile devices, particularly with its recent line of Galaxy S II phones in the U.S. It also made the previous Nexus phone, the Nexus S.

"Samsung and Google have closely collaborated to push the mobile experience forward," J.K. Shin, head of Samsung's mobile business, said in a statement.

Unlike previous versions, Ice Cream Sandwich will run on any mobile device.

"Ice Cream Sandwich demonstrates the Android platform's continued innovation with one release that works on phones andtablets and everything in between," Andy Rubin, head of Google's mobile business, said in a statement.

As with all Nexus phones, the Galaxy Nexus boasts some impressive specifications. The smartphone features a 1.2 gigahertz dual-core processor, a 4.65-inch Super AMOLED HD screen with a resolution of 1280x720 pixels, 1GB of RAM, 32GB of storage, and a pronounced curved shape that is intended to cradle the face. There's a a 5-megapixel camera, a 1.3-megapixel front-facing camera for video chats, and support for 1080p HD video capture and playback. Samsung says that its camera experiences zero shutter lag.

The body of the HSPA+ version is a svelte 8.9 millimeters thick (Neither Google nor Samsung specificed the thickness of the LTE version in their presentation.) The Nexus S also featured a subtle curve in its design, in keeping with the original curve of the Samsung Nexus S.

The Galaxy Nexus will launch in November in the U.S., Europe, and Asia (including China and Japan). Although no pricing has been announced, Samsung did mention that NTT DoCoMo will be the Japanese carrier.

The Galaxy Nexus debuts amid a number of other super smartphones. Earlier today, Verizon Wireless and Motorola unveiled the super-thin 4G LTE-enabled Droid Razr, a 7.1-millimeter thin phone that comes on the heels of the Droid Bionic. Apple, meanwhile, boasted of selling 4 million iPhones over the weekend after the 4S launched on Friday.

Since the first Nexus One from HTC, Google has used its line of Nexus phones as a showcase for the latest user interface and features available with the updated version of Android. In fact, theNexus One was Google's stab at selling smartphones directly to consumers, although the lack of marketing and customer supported quickly forced the Internet giant to shutter those plans.

The anointed handset vendor partner, meanwhile, gets an early peek at those upgrades, useful for planning out the rest of its Android lineup. The Nexus S, for instance, was the first to have an integrated near-field communications chip, allowing it to use the Google Wallet mobile-payment system. The Galaxy Nexus will also have an NFC chip.

It's unclear how long Google will continue to pick its favorite Android partners; it plans to get into the hardware business itself with the planned $12.5 billion acquisition of Motorola Mobility. Google, for its part, said it will remain a neutral partner to all of its vendors.

The pervasiveness of Android and Google's ability to work with multiple partners has fueled its ascent in the mobile world. The momentum has allowed it to take a dominant lead in the smartphone market even as Apple's iPhone remains the top-selling smartphone in the world. Google hopes the Galaxy Nexus will be able to sustain that strength.

Source: http://news.cnet.com/8301-1035_3-20122278-94/google-samsung-unveil-ice-cream-sandwich-powered-galaxy-nexus/?tag=mncol;txt

Upcoming Facebook App: Know How Much Electricity YOU and Your Friends Use!

Friends can compare energy consumption, compete to improve. The free app is set to release early next year. It helps consumers make smarter energy decisions.

An upcoming Facebook app from OPOWER lets you compete to use less energy than your friends.

(CNN) -- Add energy consumption to the laundry list of things you can share with online friends on Facebook.

OPOWER, a company that uses game mechanics to encourage people to use less energy in their homes, is working with Facebook and the Natural Resources Defense Council to create an app that will let people share data about how much -- or little -- electricity they're using at home.

The app is expected to be available early next year, according to Facebook and OPOWER.
"It's not that sexy of a topic. People don't spend a lot of time thinking about their energy use -- so we're really excited to bring this conversation to life" with the upcoming app, said Marcy Scott Lynn, who leads sustainability programs at Facebook.

The hope is to get friends to compete against each other to use less energy, and to hold each other accountable for energy-use-reduction goals, said Ogi Kavazovic, a spokesman for OPOWER.
"A person in London could compete in energy usage with a person in California," he said.

A feature called "Friend Rank" lets Facebook friends see who in their social network uses the least energy per day. Another lets the app's users compare themselves to people who have similar-sized homes. The app also will let people compare their energy use with the Facebook community at large.

"People will be able to benchmark their home energy use against a national database of millions of homes. All benchmarking will be done on an aggregate level, ensuring complete data privacy," OPOWER said in a statement.

The app will automatically upload energy consumption data if a person approves that functionality.

"Everything you do related to this app will be a choice in terms of whether or not you choose to sign up for it; what you choose to share, if anything; how much of it gets published to your news feed; or whether you share it with your friends or invite your friends to use it," said Lynn, from Facebook. "It's entirely a choice
model."

The Facebook app essentially builds on how OPOWER already works. The company uses smart meter data from 60 utilities in the United States and the UK to give customers more detailed information about the energy they're consuming. Bills from OPOWER, for example, tell people how their monthly energy use compares to their neighbors, on average.

If they're doing well, or beating the average, customers get a smiley face on their bills.
It's a subtle effort to promote do-goodery, but the company says it's effective at getting people to use less power.

An average OPOWER customer uses 2 to 3% less energy, CEO Dan Yates told CNN last year.
NRDC, the environmental group, says the app will offer energy savings tips for users.
The point is to give people more information about how they're using electricity, said Jenny Powers, an NRDC spokeswoman.

"Right now you get your electricity bill and it's just one big charge and you have no idea what that means or how you can compare it with others," she said. "This sort of thing finally makes it relevant -- puts it into perspective, and offers solutions about how you can go about cutting that bill back, without losing any of your everyday comfort."

OPOWER currently reaches about 55 million homes, Kavazovic said. A person's utility must sign up with OPOWER and approve the Facebook app in order for the customer to activate the service.

The app could make these kinds of services more popular, Powers said, causing a "snowball effect" in which more utilities will want to sign up.

"In every other part of our daily consumption, we're able to find good deals -- coupons at the supermarket, sales at the hardware store. But we never catch a break on our electric bill," she said in an e-mail. "This app will collectively empower people to find their own hidden deals right within their bills."

Source: http://edition.cnn.com/2011/10/17/tech/social-media/opower-facebook-energy-app/index.html?eref=rss_tech&utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+rss%2Fcnn_tech+%28RSS%3A+Technology%29

This is probably the first blog post I do personally.

Found this photo on Facebook. Truth is, I am a player of Angry Birds. Nice to know that it came from the Sesame Street characters. [Not confirmed if true]

You can download it from Google Chrome's App Store or from any of these search engine results:

Slingshoot higher...Go Angry Birds! :)

It is Final! Microsoft Buys Skype for $8.5 Billion!

Skype CEO Tony Bates will assume the title of president of the new Skype Division immediately, reporting directly to Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer.

Microsoft Corp. on Friday said it has closed its $8.5 billion acquisition of Luxembourg-based Internet voice and video communication provider Skype.

Skype CEO Tony Bates will assume the title of president of the new Skype Division immediately, reporting directly to Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer.

The acquisition is however still under review in a few countries, and will be completed in those countries when such reviews are closed, Microsoft said without naming the countries. The deal was cleared by the Department of Justice in the U.S. in June and antitrust regulators in the European Union this month.

Microsoft announced in May that it had agreed to acquire Skype, and said at the time that it would be integrated with Microsoft's products, without affecting availability of the popular Internet telephony application on platforms from competitors.

The Skype division will continue to offer its current products to millions of users globally, Microsoft said on Friday. In the long term, Skype will also be integrated across an array of Microsoft products to broaden Skype's reach and accelerate its growth as a fundamental way for people to communicate online, it added.

Source: http://news.brothersoft.com/microsoft-finally-acquires-skype-for-8-5-billion-22396.html

Opera 11.1: Full-packed for Android Devices

Opera Mobile 11.1 for Android has now arrived the Android Market, as one of the most popular web browser, the latest mobile version adds a lot of cool stuffs, and meanwhile fixes some bugs, it could be said the mobile version can absolutely do the exactly same as the desktop one, actually it can do even better than that, it provide a more secure environment for the web surfing users.

As a web browser for smartphones and PDAs, the first version of Opera Mobile was released in 2000 for the Psion Series 7 and netBook. Today, it is available for a variety of devices that run on Android, S60, Windows Mobile, Maemo (labs), and MeeGo (labs). Opera Mobile 10 was released to operators and OEMs on December 10, 2009, as a direct-to-distributor version and was made available on the Opera website on March 16, 2010. It is available on Android, BREW, Windows Mobile, and Symbian/S60 smartphones, and it is in development for Maemo devices.

Opera Mobile uses the Presto layout engine and supports many web standards, as well as Ajax. As of version 9.7, it can use Opera Turbo that compresses web pages via Opera Software's "Turbo" servers, thus reducing download size. Because web pages are compressed, page loading times are improved, and bandwidth consumption is reduced by up to 80%.

The browser can dynamically reformat web pages for small screen, using Opera's Small Screen Rendering (SSR) technology and text-wrapping. Opera Mobile 10 includes a "Speed Dial" feature, which allows the user to add links shown as thumbnail images in a page displayed when a new tab is opened. Once set up, this feature allows the user to more easily navigate to the selected web pages, and visual tabs, that allow the browsing multiple Web sites at one time. It also includes a password manager and pop-up handler, and it supports copy and paste,address auto-complete, zooming, history, and bookmarks. The browser can be used by either using finger-touch or stylus on a touchscreen or with a keypad and can be displayed in portrait and landscape mode.

The latest version doesn’t add anything revolutionary, but instead builds upon the current experience, with fixes for some software bugs and several security flaws, one of which could allow rogue apps access to user information stored in the browser cache. The new features include a new interface looks better on your device and gives Opera Mobile a sleek, modern browser appearance, pinch-to-zoom and smooth panning let you surf in a natural, intuitive way, synchronize bookmarks, Speed Dial and more with your computer or other mobile devices via Opera Link, Twitter and Facebook support is built in, so you can easily share Web content with others, games and free apps can be downloaded from the Opera Mobile Store in Opera Mobile's Speed Dial.

Of course, the update also makes several changes beneficial to all Opera Mobile users, whether on Honeycomb or not. Primarily this comes in the form of a security flaw fix which now isolates Opera’s cache files, making them more secure as they were previously a bit vulnerable to intrusion from potentially malicious apps. Other useful changes include general stability improvements and corrections for some fonts not displaying properly on some devices. A black screen bug was also fixed along with a disappearing text bug.

Other improvements include auto-complete support, auto-suggest for domain search, and enhanced text selection. Overall, the browser is supposedly more stable, and should deliver better performance with the upgrade in the Opera Presto rendering engine. Various fixes are part of update, with font, stability, black screen, disappearing text, and HTML5 issues being resolved across a range of devices. The update is compatible on devices bearing Android 1.6 or higher.

Source: http://news.brothersoft.com/opera-mobile-11-1-for-android-synchronized-bookmarks-speed-dial-and-more-21062.html

Firefox 7: Faster Performance and Conservative Memory Usage

Performance and improved memory use were the goals ofFirefox 7, which arrived on schedule today from Mozilla. Firefox 7 is available to download for Windows, Mac, Linux, and Android.

The new Telemetry feature asks you to opt in before it will collect your data.

(Credit:Mozilla)

The wide-release version of Firefox 7 brings changes to the majority of Firefox users that the beta and Aurora channels have been playing with for some time. These include claims of significant gains in reducing memory use, "often 20 percent to 30 percent less, and sometimes as much as 50 percent less," a company representative wrote in a blog post based on work by Firefox developer Nicholas Nethercote.

These performance gains are the first public results of an internal Mozilla project called MemShrink, which, as the name implies, is about reducing the browser's system impact. Mozilla cited several specific areas of improvement in Firefox 7, including when the browser is kept open for long periods of time, when multiple tabs are open at once, and when the browser is used concurrently with other programs that also use a lot of memory. The company also noted that MemShrink was successful in part because of the rapid-release cycle that a vocal minority of Firefox users have been criticizing.

The spotlight on performance is something that Mozilla clearly plans to keep lit. When you install Firefox 7, you'll be prompted to opt in to a new anonymous-reporting measure that the company is calling Telemetry. Not unlike security suites that use your data anonymously to improve threat detection rates, Mozilla plans to crowd-source its performance data to learn more about how the browser performs in real-world situations.

Unlike the security suites, Telemetry is an opt-in reporting system, so Mozilla won't be collecting data without permission. Lead privacy engineer Sid Stamm addresses security concerns in a blog post, but the short version is that Mozilla is far more open about the data it collects--and why it collects that data--than competitors such as Apple, Google, and Microsoft. Currently, Telemetry looks at four categories: memory usage, CPU core count, cycle collection times, and startup speed. Curious readers can install the about:telemetry add-on to see the personal statistics Firefox is gathering.

If you've enabled Telemetry and would like to disable it, you can go to Options, Advanced, and uncheck the Submit Performance Data box at the bottom of the General tab.

Mozilla chart showing decreasing Firefox memory usage.

(Credit:Mozilla)

Other changes in Firefox 7 for desktops include a new version of hardware-accelerated Canvas for faster HTML5 games and animations, and improvements for Web developers. These include support for the W3C navigation timing API, which allows developers to measure page load time and site navigation against factors like bandwidth, and a new set of Firefox tools for developers.

Firefox 7 for Android includes a laundry list of changes, including the ability to select text in a Web page for copying and pasting. Long-tap on a site, and theAndroid-style drag handles will appear. There's a new Quit feature under Preferences/More to force an exit from the browser, the WebSocket API now works on Firefox for mobile devices, and image rendering has been improved on Tegra-poweredtablets and phones. The browser also now auto-detects your system default language if it's supported, and a new Preferences option enables you to change the language displayed in the browser on-demand.

Full release notes for Firefox for desktops are here, while Firefox for Android release notes can be read here.

Source: http://download.cnet.com/8301-2007_4-20112253-12/memory-comes-to-the-fore-in-firefox-7/?tag=mncol;mlt_related