Archive for the ‘Mobile’ Category
Ex-Voodoo PC chief Rahul Sood joins Microsoft to design cool stuff
Rahul Sood, a product wunderkind at , left his job last month and has reappeared as the general manager of “system experience” within the interactive entertainment business at Microsoft. He announced the new gig on his today.
His hire is sure to set off speculation. Is he working on a new game console to replace the five-year-old Xbox 360? Will he replace product design wizard J Allard, who left Microsoft this year? It’s a reminder to me that, for all the vast number of employees at big tech companies, one or two key people can make all the difference in the world.
One thing is for sure. Microsoft wouldn’t hire a guy like Sood and put him on something unimportant, like making sure a fan fits inside a game box. Whenever Sood showed a new HP product to me, he held the thing like it was his own baby.
Sood has had a storied career as a computer designer. At a time when everyone was designing beige box PCs, he started Voodoo PC in Calgary, Canada, in 1991. Joined much later by his brother Ravi, the Sood business created screaming-fast computers for gamers with liquid cooling, the fastest graphics cards, and custom paint jobs. Voodoo PC made a hundred or so a month and sold them for $5,000 to $10,000 each.
The company caught the eye of Mark Hurd, chief executive of Hewlett-Packard, who wanted to bring in the right people to revamp HP’s product design and create magical technology experiences that rivaled Apple’s. For a time, it worked. HP designed the Blackbird gaming PC and created the Envy laptop, which was HP’s answer to the MacBook Air.
But somehow, HP didn’t seem to make the best use of Voodoo’s crew. It pretty much dropped out of the gaming PC business and focused on trying to make its mainstream products sexy and edgy. Designing good products may come easy for Steve Jobs at Apple. But doing that at HP can’t be easy. As former CEO Carly Fiorina once said, if HP marketed sushi, it would call it “cold dead fish.”
Sood left not long after Hurd went out the door this fall. At Microsoft, Sood said, “I’ll be working on some really… really … really cool stuff come January 2011. If you need to get in touch with me feel free to find me on Facebook or Twitter. I may or may not attend CES, but if you have something really cool to show let me know soon!”
It’s exciting to see that Sood has gone to Microsoft. He may very well be working as a janitor, for all I know. But I get the feeling that Microsoft is working on something important.
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Devicescape helps MetroPCS offload data traffic to Wi-Fi networks
Wireless phone provider announced a deal with that allows the cell phone service provider to move data traffic from its cellular network to Wi-Fi networks.
In doing so, MetroPCS will be able to offload traffic from its expensive and overloaded cellular network to the more affordable and more available Wi-Fi networks. Devicescape’s software, which tracks Wi-Fi hot spots and makes it easy to log into them, will be embedded in all of the new Android smartphones coming out of MetroPCS.
It’s a partnership that makes sense for cell phone companies deal with the rising costs of delivering service in the age of smartphones.
MetroPCS will tap Devicescape as a white-label Wi-Fi locator app, which makes it easy for cell phone users to shift data to Wi-Fi. The Devicescape product lets users with Android phones roam from Wi-Fi hotspot to Wi-Fi hotspot, seamlessly, much like a cellular network moves a call from one cell to another without interrupted service. The value of Devicescape is that it allows its users to log in automatically at lots of locations, so they don’t have to waste time typing in usernames and passwords.
The Devicescape Easy WiFi Network has more than half a million hot spots. By tapping Wi-Fi, MetroPCS doesn’t have to build out the more expensive cellular networks such as 3G or 4G networks.
this solution can help cellular and Wi-Fi networks complement each other rather than compete. It also improves the overall customer experience.
Android-based smartphones are gaining popularity, but they’re also driving consumers to use the internet more. That’s a good thing, but it puts pressure on the limited capacity of the cellular networks when it comes to handling data traffic. MetroPCS, which offers phones with no annual contract, offers unlimited talk, text and web services for a flat rate.
A custom version of Devicescape’s , called MetroPCS Easy WiFi, is included in all of MetroPCS’ Android smartphones – starting with the LG Optimus and Huawei Ascend phones.
The Devicescape technology is used to mitigate costs and reduce congestion through the diversion of data traffic onto the prolific Easy WiFi network. If it works out, Devicescape can replicate the deal with other carriers.
“Carriers need to employ multiple strategies when it comes to economically managing this traffic explosion,” said Rob Enderle, an analyst at the Enderle Group. “Offloading to Wi-Fi as seen here with MetroPCS is one smart move.”
Devicescape’s backers include Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, August Capital, Enterprise Partners, and JAFCO.
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Foursquare, Gowalla, Instagram: Mobile photos are everywhere
It’s been a big week for numbers about photos. Yesterday, location-based service with support for photo-sharing, and that the service was already approaching one photo uploaded per second. Competitor . And mobile photo app .
My first thought upon seeing those numbers: Damn, that’s a lot of photo-sharing. Instagram in particular seems to be growing super-fast. The service only launched two months ago — in comparison, Gowalla still hasn’t hit the 1 million user mark (at least, according to ), , and Twitter took two years.
My second thought: Gowalla better get moving on deals with other photo services ASAP. As , a lot of Foursquare’s fast pickup on photos probably comes from partnerships with Foodspotting, Instagram, and PicPlz. Meanwhile, services like Instagram and on integrating with lots of other services.
At this point, with all these integrations already in place, none of these apps can try to differentiate by “owning” your photos. Unless you’ve got a massive user base like Facebook, the name of the game is making it as easy as possible for users to share photos on whatever site they want — that’s probably what and .
I think the folks behind Gowalla know this too, since they’ve already demonstrated an open-minded approach to . On the photo integration front, however, Foursquare got there first.
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Apple removes WikiLeaks app after just three days in App Store
Apple said Tuesday that it has removed a WikiLeaks app from its App Store because it violated the company’s developer guidelines.
Trudy Muller, a spokeswoman for Apple, said to the that apps “must comply with all local laws and may not put an individual or group in harm’s way.” The latter is a reference to complaints that WikiLeaks’ publication of secret diplomatic cables has put the lives to diplomats and their acquaintances in danger.
The decision is another setback for WikiLeaks. with it to stop doing so. Companies such as Amazon, Visa, MasterCard, and PayPal have dropped WikiLeaks for claims similar to Apple’s.
The $1.99 WikiLeaks app was only up on the App Store, which supplies apps for the iPhone, iPad and iPod Touch, for three days. The developer promised to donate $1 for every download to groups that promote the future of online democracy.
Meanwhile, WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange lashed out at criticswith the Times of London. He dismissed rape charges against him in Sweden as part of a “smear campaign.” The Guardian newspaper printed a portion of the police report related to the incident, where Assange is accused of forcing a woman to have sex with him without a condom.
Assange said he has enough information to force an executive at a major American bank to resign.
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Sony Ericsson’s PlayStation Phone expected to debut in April (report)
The rumored Sony Ericsson PlayStation phone powered by Android could hit stores as early as April, according to the news site .
Pictures and videos about the upcoming game-focused phone have been appearing for a few months, suggesting that something is happening. The phone would likely be Sony’s response to the competitive threat from Apple’s iPhone, which has become a major gaming device with tens of thousands of game apps. And since it’s running Android, it will give that platform some much-needed gaming cred as well.
Sony Ericsson also has to worry about the threat from Windows Phone 7 phones, which feature integration with Microsoft’s Xbox Live online gaming service.
Pocket-lint said that the phone would like be announced at the Mobile World Congress in February, not at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas next month, as some had hoped.
, the phone will come with a slide-out keypad that features game-like controls in the familiar PlayStation pattern of a square, x, triangle, and circle buttons. The device reportedly has a 1 gigahertz Qualcomm MSM8655, 512 megabytes of random access memory, a gigabyte of read-only memory, and the screen is 3.7 to 4.1 inches.
Sony Ericsson hasn’t commented. But the company’s chief executive, Bert Nordberg, said in November, “There’s a lot of smoke, and I tell you there must be a fire somewhere”, when asked about the PlayStation phone’s existence.
“Sony has an extremely strong offering in the gaming market, and that’s very interesting”, Nordberg said before adding: “gaming, including content, is a very interesting proposition”.
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HP to show off its PalmPad webOS tablet next month?
HP is gearing up to unveil its long-awaited tablet running Palm’s webOS software. It will show off the device at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas next month, according to , who also managed to dig up some details on the device.
We reported in September that HP was abandoning its plans for an Android tablet and was . A CES debut would fit into the company’s schedule, and it would also give Palm a leg up on Apple’s second-generation iPad announcement. At the same time, CES will definitely be filled with tablets of all shapes and sizes, so it’s going to be tough for Palm to stand out.
Morris says that HP will debut three tablet models, each running a new version of the webOS operating system (version 2.5.1). They will likely feature screens around 10 inches, front and rear-facing cameras (at 1.3 and 3 megapixels) and compatibility with Sprint’s 4G wireless network. For video output, the PalmPads will sport a mini-HDMI connection. They may also have a USB 3.0 port, which doesn’t make much sense to me on a tablet but should allow for extremely fast data transfer between the tablet and other devices.
A fourth version won’t be shown at CES and will be customized for university students. It may feature a smaller 8.9-inch screen, according to Morris, and will also “have access to a university’s internet educational software.”
Morris describes the PalmPad designs as a spin-off of the “never released” HP Slate tablet. Actually, HP did release the Slate, which ran Windows 7, for $799 in October — it’s just that nobody cared. VentureBeat’s Dean Takahashi .
I wouldn’t be surprised if HP decided to reuse its Slate hardware for the PalmPad, but I hope that it gets a redesign so it doesn’t appear too similar to the failed tablet.
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FCC lays down net neutrality rules, wireless providers exempt from some
The Federal Communications Commission voted today to lay down a number of basic rules that ban Internet service providers from blocking specific content and help keep the web open.
The new rules keep ISPs from blocking specific websites and other content. The rules also allow ISPs to throttle web connections if they believe their customers are using too much bandwidth, but require the ISPs to be “reasonable” when doing so. Internet providers also have to have a greater level of transparency.
But wireless telecommunications companies were exempt from the packet discrimination rules — which is a bit of a head scratcher. Mobile web use is growing rapidly and some actually rely on wireless networks for their Internet usage through mobile hot-spot devices. Without those rules in place, wireless companies are free to stop some smartphone users from taking advantage of their data plans by throttling download and upload speeds.
Both Google and Verizon agreed that wireless web access requires a different set of tools and technology. The chief executives for both companies said , a suggestion . Google CEO Eric Schmidt said that both companies had been in discussions for over a year, and that they already had discussions with the FCC.
Government officials have been arguing about net neutrality for some time now. The idea first came up when the FCC ordered Comcast to halt plans to slow Internet traffic for peer-to-peer file sharers. A federal appeals court said that the FCC had overstepped its authority. The vote happened right down party lines, with both Republicans on the committee voting against the new net neutrality rules.
Back when President Barack Obama was campaigning for office, he made net neutrality a big part of his tech policy platform. But as wireless Internet use continues to grow, it’s unclear whether the FCC will step in and begin regulating that space and lay out a new set of net neutrality rules for wireless providers.
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