Samsung Will Showcase Galaxy Player at CES 2011

One of the goodies expected to be featured at CES 2011 is the Android-based Galaxy Player. The 9.9mm thick Galaxy Player (YP-GB1) will be running Android 2.2 Froyo and is inspired by the successful Galaxy S phones. It will also look good next to the 7″ Samsung Galaxy Tab, which launched in September and has moved more than 1 million units.

The 9.9mm thick Galaxy Player (YP-GB1) runs on Android 2.2 Froyo OS and features a 1GHz CPU, 4-inch Super Clear LCD screen supporting up to WVGA resolution (800×480), T-DMB, SoundAlive audio enhancing technology, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth 3.0, 3.2MP rear camera with front facing camera for video calling, GPS, HD video playback, microSD card slot, Android Market and Samsung Apps access and a 1200mAh removable battery.

via Samsung Hub


Tech Week In Review 12-24-2010

Your Apps May Be Snitching

For an increasing number of techies and non-techies alike, smartphones are becoming a central part of life. It’s no wonder that these devices store some of our most personal secrets and information. While the relationship with our smartphones seems intact, it looks like the apps we run on those phones could be undermining what we’ve built.

An examination of 101 popular smartphone “apps”—games and other software applications for iPhone and Android phones—showed that 56 transmitted the phone’s unique device ID to other companies without users’ awareness or consent. Forty-seven apps transmitted the phone’s location in some way. Five sent age, gender and other personal details to outsiders.

iPhone apps were found to share more data than Android apps and we aren’t talking about niche or no-name applications. Some of the apps at fault include: TextPlus, Pandora, Paper Toss, and Grindr. Many of those applications are able to share your data without your knowledge or consent, despite the limitations placed on apps on both platforms. While much of the data was found to be shared “anonymously,” it would be best to keep your smartphone close and your apps even closer.

via WSJ

Google TV Delayed for Last-Minute Tweaks

Google TV was supposed to be the future of living room entertainment. It was supposed to battle Apple TV and Roku, who have both already moved around 1 million units. At The Consumer Electronics Show next month in Las Vegas, we were supposed to see a preview of the Google TV software, which basically brings the web to your TV. Manufacturers like Sony, LG, Toshiba, and Sharp were on board and ready to go.

But Google has asked the TV makers to delay their introductions, according to people familiar with the company’s plans, so that it can refine the software, which has received a lukewarm reception. The late request caught some of the manufacturers off guard.’

James L. McQuivey, an analyst at Forrester, says that one of Google’s problems is in handling their partnerships. Until they develop “more sophisticated partnership skills and issue polished products,” they will continue to have difficulties. McQuivey went on to say that Google TV has all the right ingredients and the perfect recipe, but Google is having a hard time putting it all together. They’re going to need to step their cooking game up because this is a race and they have been left at the starting line.

via NYTimes

Google Buys Huge Building in New York for $1.9 Billion

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Google is building their presence in New York by purchasing a ridiculously large building. Not only is the building huge, but it sits in a strategic position on top of the Hudson Street/Ninth Avenue fiber highway.

So down, in fact, that the web search titan just dropped $1.9 billion to acquire one of the largest and most historic buildings in all of the Big Apple. At nearly 3 million square feet, 111 Eighth Avenue, the former Port Authority building, sits like a beached, red-brick cruise ship overlooking New York’s Chelsea neighborhood. The building is so big, in fact, that it has elevators large enough to accommodate 18-wheel semi-trucks.

And yes, that’s a helicopter landing pad on the roof.

The building’s proximity to fiber has made it attractive to tenants like Verizon, Sprint, Level 3, WebMD, Nike, BarnesandNoble.com and ad agency Deutsch. Now, Google will kind of become their landlord. They will retain the Taconic Management Company to “continue the leasing oversight services and management of the building” in order to maintain “the same level of customer service the building’s tenants have come to expect.”

via Google, Wired

Facebook Categorizes Your Updates

Facebook took updates from its users, did some fancy math magic with them, and came up with some interesting insights into user behavior. For example, young people like to curse and are likely to express more negative emotions. They also talk about themselves a lot. Older people tend to post longer updates that mention other people. What is most interesting to note for those trying to build a brand on Facebook:

Word usage of more “popular” people also differs from people with a lower friend count. People with more friends tend to use more of the pronoun “you” and other second person pronouns. They write longer updates, and use more words referring to music and sports. More “popular” people also talk less about their families, are less emotional overall, use fewer past tense and present tense verbs and words related to time.

So, if you want people to connect with you on Facebook or any other social network: don’t get too personal, be positive (or at least neutral), make your updates timeless, and talk about others more than yourself.

via Facebook, ReadWriteWeb


Google and NORAD Let You Track Santa Again

Google and NORAD (North American Aerospace Defence Command) have teamed up to bring you realtime coverage of Santa’s sleigh-ride around the world. You can follow Santa as he travels the world sliding down chimneys, dropping off presents, and eating entirely too many chocolate chip cookies.

NORAD has confirmed that Santa and his fully-loaded, reindeer-powered sleigh took off from the North Pole and soared into the arctic sky at 6:00 a.m. EST (5:00 a.m. CST, 4:00 a.m. MST, 3:00 a.m. PST). NORAD radar is tracking Rudolph’s bright red nose, and satellite imagery is providing minute-by-minute coverage of Santa’s location.

While watching Santa’s progress across a world map is pretty cool, that’s just the tip of the iceberg this year. Instead of just watching a 2D Santa hop across a flat map, you can see Santa in 3D using the Google Earth plugin. Tips on setting that up are here. After you’ve got the plugin installed, just visit the 3D tracker to see what’s really going on with jolly old St. Nick.

With mobile being the new center of attention in the tech world, Google and NORAD have also made it possible to check on Santa from your smartphone using Google Maps for mobile. Just open it up and do a search for “Santa” to see his latest location.

If you’re interested in seeing videos of where Santa has been or can’t get the Google Earth plugin working, you can watch video of where he’s been.

Santa Cams are ultra-cool, high-tech, high-speed digital cameras pre-positioned at many locations around the world only on December 24th. The cameras capture images and videos of Santa and his reindeer as they make their journey around the world.

For the kids, or adults who still believe in Santa, you can visit the Kids’ Countdown section to browse shops in the North Pole, play games, and see what’s going on with Santa’s helpers.

Making sure to keep up with the latest in social networking, you can also track Santa via Facebook and on Twitter at @noradsanta.


Steve Jobs Person of the Year According to Financial Times

While Time magazine named Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg person of the year, Financial Times opts for Apple CEO Steve Jobs. It’s easy to see how both leaders could be considered for such a title. Both run high-profile companies who set the standards in their respective industries.

It’s hard to argue against FT’s logic: Apple had a phenomenal year, with back-to-back record quarters at a time when the U.S. is still emerging out of a deep recession. Under the leadership of Steve Jobs, Apple also managed to create another breakthrough product: the iPad. Finally, the iPhone 4 launch, although initially marred with antenna issues, turned out to be one of the most successful product launches in Apple history.

Definitely hard to argue against an Apple or Facebook CEO for person of the year, but it highlights an interesting point about Google. While you will regularly see Google right up there with Apple and Facebook as far as leading the technology world, it seems that Eric Schmidt just doesn’t have the same presence as a Zuckerberg or a Jobs. Even Bill Gates was mentioned as a potential candidate by FT.

via Mashable, Financial Times


Google’s Holiday Gift Card Doodle

Google latest doodle is their most ambitious one yet. It features a collage of artwork with the images representing the letters and colors of the Google logo. Michael Lopez, who has been “chief doodler” for the past 18 months said, “”We want to end the year with a bang.”

For Micheal Lopez, creating this years holiday card came down to the wire. The design took five artists about 250 hours. It will be opened by hundreds of millions of people. Youre on the list.

Google has featured some pretty fancy doodles in the past year. Some interactive, some including video, and others featuring artwork. This latest Google logo represents a combination of advanced HTML 5 web programming and stunning artwork. As you hover over each individual image, it expands so that you can see the whole thing.

via WSJ


Skype Explains Why They Were Down

Skype was down for millions of users today. Twitter was buzzing with users saying they couldn’t login. Initially, Skype engineers weren’t sure what the problem was and directed users to monitor @Skype on Twitter for updates. According to Om Malik, this response was simply not good enough:

Sorry, not good enough! Skype is one of the key applications of the modern web. It is already a hit with consumers, and over past few years it has become part of the economic fabric for startups and small businesses around the world. I am not sure we can comprehend the productivity cost of this outage.

Skype is an important communications tool for a lot of people. For many, it gets more use than their actual phones. While many users aren’t paying, they were still adversely affected by the outage and many were just as upset as Om.

According to Skype, the outage was due to some of their “supernodes” being unavailable because “many of them were taken offline by a problem affecting some versions of Skype.” Skype works as a distributed network, this is why some users had no problems and others were unable to login. Key pieces of the network failed, effectively blocking users across the globe.

As Om points out, a peer-to-peer network like Skype shouldn’t really go down. This outage shows that there are some chinks in the Skype armor and the network may not be as robust as originally thought. This also comes at a time when Skype is pushing into the business sector and just coming from an IPO.

Skype says that their engineers are frantically creating new “mega-supernodes” which should resolve the problem, but many users are still experiencing difficulties at this time.


FCC on Mobile Net Neutrality

Yesterday, the FCC voted in favor of net neutrality. Many argue that, while this is a step forward for net neutrality, the rules that have been put in place aren’t nearly enough. One of the main concerns for those in favor of net neutrality are the rules regarding mobile broadband. Engadget has found some interesting bits in the released online.sodapdf.com PDF in a section titled “Measured Steps for Mobile Broadband”:

Further, we recognize that there have been meaningful recent moves toward openness, including the introduction of open operating systems like Android. In addition, we anticipate soon seeing the effects on the market of the openness conditions we imposed on mobile providers that operate on upper 700 MHz C-Block spectrum, which includes Verizon Wireless, one of the largest mobile wireless carriers in the U.S.
In light of these considerations, we conclude it is appropriate to take measured steps at this time to protect the openness of the Internet when accessed through mobile broadband.
Regardless of which side you choose in regards to net neutrality, it’s pretty obvious that the operating system running on a mobile device has nothing to do with how open the service provider is. As Engadget puts it:
it doesn’t matter how open your OS is when you’re stuck with a filtered and throttled connection, and it’s a pretty huge stretch to think Android’s openness (however you want to define it) has anything to do with network access itself.
MG Siegler at TechCrunch has a much stronger opinion on matter, basically occusing the FCC of colluding with Google and Verizon:
It was only a month ago that FCC head Julius Genachowski said that the Verizon/Google proposal “slowed down” the process of coming up with a net neutrality proposal. Apparently, that’s because they had to rewrite the thing to include exactly what Verizon and Google agreed upon.
Whatever the case may be, this debate is far from over and we will probably see a lot more interesting things come out as more people analyze the FCC’s decision.


FCC Votes for Net Neutrality. Is It Enough?

In a 3-2 vote today, a divided FCC passed net neutrality regulations aimed at preventing broadband providers from discriminating against certain content and services or favoring their business partners.

Genachowski said the regulations will prohibit broadband providers from abusing their control over the on-ramps that consumers use to get onto the Internet. He said the companies won’t be able to determine where their customers can go and what they can do online.

“Today, for the first time, we are adopting rules to preserve basic Internet values,” Genachowski said. “For the first time, we’ll have enforceable rules of the road to preserve Internet freedom and openness.”

The three Democrats voted to pass the rules, while the two Republicans opposed them. Those opposed say that these are “unnecessary regulations” as broadband providers have already pledged not to discriminate against Internet traffic on their networks. Republicans and others opposed to the regulations insist that these new rules are intended to fix a problem that does not exist.

“The Internet will be no more open tomorrow than it is today,” said Meredith Attwell Baker, a Republican.

Still, those for the regulations don’t feel enough was done today to ensure true “net neutrality.” Wireless providers were given more leeway in how they manage their networks because of their limited bandwidth. Providers were also given some considerations to “experiment with routing traffic from specialized services such as smart grids and home security systems over dedicated networks as long as these services are separate from the public Internet.”

via Yahoo! News


LTE May Leave WiMAX in the Dust by 2015, Verizon Could Block Handsets

With the impending launch of LTE, many early backers of WiMAX are worried. By the end of 2010, WiMAX will have 11 million subscribers worldwide. Still, LTE will be launched by carriers in 55 countries over the next 2 years, which should accelerate growth of the new 4G technology.

WiMAX might have gotten a head start when it comes to the next generation wireless broadband sweepstakes, but the technology is beginning to feel the heat from its rival, Long Term Evolution aka LTE. New data from research firm Telegeography shows that by 2015, LTE will have seven times as many users as WiMAX.

Not only does LTE bring speed, but it also has some potential drawbacks. Louis Carrara, VP of business development at Gemalto, told PC Mag that allows for openness, sure, but it also makes provisions for networks to be totally locked down. Gemalto is the world’s No. 1 maker of SIM cards.

Verizon LTE phone users will most likely be able to swap SIM cards between Verizon devices, Carrara said. That’s a key part of the LTE spec.

But there’s also a feature in the SIM cards which reports back to the network what device the SIM is in. (That’s not true of most GSM SIMs.) That means Verizon could choose to lock out non-Verizon LTE devices, or require that a device logging in have a specific service plan.

So, while we will see mobile technology get faster and more advanced with features like NFC for secure mobile payments, LTE may give carriers more ability to monitor and control what we do with our beloved mobile devices.

via PCMag.com, GigaOM


Apple Projecting One Million Apple TV Sales

Google recently told manufacturers to hold off while they tweak the Google TV software. Roku has finally moved one million units, but they’ve had much longer to do it than Apple. As a matter of fact, Roku CEO Anthony Wood confessed that Roku sales doubled since the new $99 Apple TV was launched.

CUPERTINO, California—December 21, 2010—Apple® today announced that it expects sales of its new Apple TV® to top one million units later this week. The new Apple TV offers the simplest way to watch your favorite HD movies and TV shows, stream content from Netflix, YouTube, Flickr and MobileMe?, all on your HD TV for the breakthrough price of just $99. iTunes® users are now renting and purchasing over 400,000 TV episodes and over 150,000 movies per day.

Just as the iPhone has had a huge effect on the smartphone market, Apple TV is influencing your TV screen. Not only that but, just as the iPhone helped average consumers understand what a smartphone could do, Apple TV will educate them on what these third-party set-top boxes are for.

I’m not really an Apple fan, but that $99 price point combined with the ability to watch stuff like Netflix has me interested. What about you?

via Apple, Engadget


Foursquare Adds Photos and Comments

Foursquare has just unleashed a couple of features that change the landscape of location-based services. Gowalla has always been a service with the visual appeal users crave, but lacking the most important factor in social networking: your existing friends. In response to this, Gowalla launched an update to their apps that allowed users to check-in on Gowala, and Foursquare, and Facebook from one place. It seemed counter-productive to link up with the competition, but it’s what users wanted.

Now, Facebook is firing back with the addition of photos and comments. You can now attach photos to your check-ins and Tips. In addition, you will be able to post photos through a few high-profile photo apps and have them automatically check you into Foursquare. These include Instagram, PicPlz, and Foodspotting.

Currently, commenting and posting photos are only supported on the Foursquare website or in the iPhone app with support coming for Android and Blackberry in the coming weeks. If you’re an Android, you can start using PicPlz now to post/check-in.

via TechCrunch, Foursquare


Mark Zuckerberg Visits China Amidst Rumors of Facebook Acquisition

Mark Zuckerberg began his China trip in Beijing, where he met with China’s top search engine Baidu. China still blocks Facebook, shutting out around 300 million potential Facebook users of their 1.6 billion population. This is a high-priority for the social network, so much so that Zuckerberg has taken Mandarin lessons “for a while now.”

Twitter was buzzing with rumors of a possible acquisition of Facebook by Baidu, but these rumors were squashed when Baidu’s director of international communications Kaiser Kuo responded that they were “greatly exaggerated.”

Zuckerberg is definitely mixing business with pleasure, traveling with his longtime Chinese-American girlfriend, Priscilla Chan, who has family in China.

via Forbes


Tech Week in Review 12-17-2010

Blockbuster Now Makes You Wait Just As Long As Netflix

Blockbuster put a lot of energy into their “Why Wait?” campaign, going in on competitors like Netflix and Redbox for having a 28-day delay on new release DVDs. Now, Blockbuster has agreed to a similar deal with the big movie studios. NCR, which operates Blockbuster’s Redbox-like kiosks, will be offering new releases with the exact same 28-day delay. So much for not having to wait. While it seems that Netflix actually opted for the 28-day delay to reduce operating costs, Blockbuster is in a different situation.

“Blockbuster didn’t stay with new releases by choice,” explained the source at the time, who is very familiar with the studio agreements with Netflix and Blockbuster. “Movie studios have Blockbuster where they want them–they know Blockbuster is not in any position to negotiate because of their financial position. The studios are getting huge payments for new releases from Blockbuster because they know the company needs them.”

via FastCompany

Opera 11 Out Of Beta

It was only a month ago that we talked about some of the awesome new features of Opera 11 beta. Now, the bugs have been exterminated, the training wheels are off, and Opera 11 is here. The browser looks amazing and has a bunch of features we’ll probably see copied in browsers like Firefox and Chrome. Opera 11 also boasts some enhancements to the Carakan JavaScript engine, which they say “makes Opera 11 the fastest browser on Earth in many performance tests.” Opera Turbo boosts your browsing speed on crowded networks or when tethering with your mobile phone. Are you ready for a browser that goes to 11?

Meet Opera 11

via Opera

Dropbox 1.0 Brings the New Hotness

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The Dropbox folks have been in the lab putting in work and now have a shiny new version of their file sync software. Dropbox 1.0 fixes “hundreds (yep, hundreds)” of bugs and adds a few features that make it worthy of a 1.0 release.

  • Performance enhancements – The client-side sync engine has been completely re-built. Dropbox is smaller and faster.
  • Better User Experience – Installer on all platforms has been redesigned to be more user-friendly.
  • Selective Sync – Highly requested feature that will let you pick which files sync to what computer. You probably don’t want that video your downloaded of Miley Cyrus syncing up with your work computer.
  • Extended Attributes Sync – Dropbox now handles syncing resource forks, which are hidden parts of files that most sync programs ignore, resulting in file corruption.

Dropbox 1.0 is the perfect excuse for you to revisit your use of Dropbox or start figuring out how it can help you get stuff done. Check out our previous coverage of Dropbox.

via The Dropbox Blog

Let Someone Else Check Your Email

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Gmail now lets you grant access to others to manage your email. After getting things set up, the other party will be able to manage your email inbox and send mail on your behalf. You can easily switch between accounts or keep them open in separate tabs. Great if you have an assistant who handles your mail. I wonder if Diddy has a Gmail account.

We’ve offered email delegation for Google Apps accounts for a while — it’s super useful for people who want their assistants to have access to read or respond to mail on their behalf. Now this functionality is available for anyone using Gmail. To grant access to another account, click the Settings link in the top right corner of Gmail. On the “Accounts” tab, you’ll see a new section where you can “Grant access to your account.”

via Gmail Blog

Twitter Raises $200 Million. Now Valued at $3.6 billion.

Twitter has completed its latest round of funding, receiving $200 million. The popular microblogging and communications platform is now valued at $3.7 billion. This latest round comes with Kleiner Perkins as the lead investor, say sources close to the situation. As Kara Swisher reports, this infusion of cash will help with Twitter’s efforts to “upgrade its management and business model” and “essentially declares it is not for sale to bigger companies such as Google (quite yet, that is).”


Delicious and Others Shuttered After Yahoo Layoffs

Earlier this week, rumors circulated about potential Yahoo layoffs. Eventually, the rumors were confirmed in a leaked internal email memo from CEO Carol Bartz to staff. Here is an excerpt from the letter, posted in full at All Things D:

Yahoos,

I want to share some tough news with you. Today, we began notifying some Yahoos that they will lose their jobs. Most of the reductions will come from the Products org and, when completed, will affect about 4% of the company.

I know this has been rumored for some time. It’s disappointing when things like this leak, and it certainly doesn’t make it any easier for anyone involved. This was a tough call, but a necessary one. We need to make these changes now to ensure that Products is structured and running the way we want as 2011 begins. And that means we need fewer Yahoos in some areas, and different types of Yahoos in others.

Soon after the layoffs, an internal presentation slide was leaked which showed a list of Yahoo services that they planned to “sunset.” Some of the services that we won’t see anymore: MyBlogLog, Yahoo! Picks, AltaVista, Yahoo! Bookmarks, Yahoo! Buzz, and (GASP!) Delicious. There are also some products that will be merged, including: Upcoming, FoxyTunes, Sideline, FireEagle, Yahoo Events, and Yahoo People Search.

Yahoo has been going through troubled times and it looks like they are trying to drop some dead weight. Not a good look for those who will be unemployed. A sad day for many avid Delicious users. For those old-school geeks who remember using Altavista, you know it was time.

via All Things D


Gawker Password Hack Ripples Across the Web

If you thought the Gawker password hack was limited to blog commenting, you would be sadly mistaken. The data now freely available covers “about 1.5 million usernames, e-mails, and passwords.” The hack is affecting users across a myriad of sites and services including LinkedIn, Yahoo, Twitter, and Blizzard’s “World of Warcraft.”

This growing problem illustrates the issue with using the same email and password across multiple services. Hackers and any malicious person can simply take your Gawker credentials and try to use them on whatever service tickles their fancy. Even if you change your password on Twitter, did you remember to do so on Facebook? Flickr? Your bank? Things can get complicated and tedious really fast.

The easiest and most obvious solution here is to use a password manager. They come in all flavors, but using one at all should put you leaps and bounds ahead of most users. Here are a few that you might want to try.

LastPass

LastPass, which recently acquired Xmarks, will generate and store you passwords across all major browsers and operating systems for free. It will also give you access to your passwords on your mobile device for a fee, but they offer a 14-day free trial. One-click login is supported.

PassPack

We’ve actually covered PassPack a few times here. It’s a cloud-based solution for businesses and workgroups. Free accounts are limited to 100 passwords and 1-click login is supported via a bookmarklet. Passpack does not seem to have a mobile solution at this time.

KeePass

While not as polished or easy to use as other services, KeePass is my solution of choice. It gives me secure access to my passwords across all screens and it’s free and open-source. The desktop app stores your passwords in a database on your computer. There is no direct browser integration, but you can easily auto-fill forms on any website with a simple key combo. By storing your database on a service like Dropbox, you can access the same KeePass database from your mobile phone using the KeePass app.

This is an extremely limited list as there are a gang of password management, storage, and generation services out there. The goal is to make sure you’re actually using one. Instead of trying to memorize a million passwords, let the software generate them for you and, usually, securely login for you as well.

What’s your solution for keeping your passwords secure?

via PC Magazine