Posts Tagged ‘MobileBeat’
BlackBerry maker RIM acquires Office document platform developer DataViz
BlackBerry creator Research in Motion has acquired the developer of the Documents To Go app, DataViz, according to a report by AllThingsD, a technology blog published by the Wall Street Journal.
By picking up DataViz, the BlackBerry manufacturer may be making a move to provide a free version of Documents To Go for BlackBerry users and maintain a hold on its big-business clients. Research In Motion also made another recent acquisition — Cellmania — in a move to expand its app-delivery platform.
DataViz’s Documents to Go is a popular programming for opening and editing Microsoft Word, Excel and PowerPoint files for BlackBerry users. The exact details haven’t been released yet, but the number flying around the Internet is about $50 million. The CrackBerry blog first reported the rumor, stating that several members of DataViz had adjusted their LinkedIn profiles to show new positions at Research in Motion.
DataViz already reportedly canceled development of its Documents To Go for Palm’s WebOS. Whether the document-reading platform will become exclusive to the BlackBerry OS is still unclear.
Research in Motion has been under scrutiny after the lukewarm launch of its BlackBerry Torch, which was billed as an iPhone competitor but had its price cut in half about a week after release. On top of that, Android handset sales overtook BlackBerry sales in August — another possible signal of the shift away from RIM.
We’ll update the story as the details come in.
Companies: DataViz, microsoft, Palm, Research In Motion, RIM
Google’s new search mantra: “Did you know?”
Google CEO Eric Schmidt said that the future of search was blazing-fast, “autonomous” searching that constantly provides users with results. He made the comments at a keynote speech at the German IFA home electronics event in Berlin Tuesday.
But autonomous search isn’t really search as we think of it — a user querying a massive database to get a result. Schmidt likened it to telling a user what he or she didn’t know, but was probably interested in seeing. Google already sees more than a billion searches cross their servers daily, and providing an automated process that is constantly providing search data can only boost those numbers.
That means more potential ad revenue from Google’s advertisements running with searches. Advertising made up about 96 percent of Google’s revenue in the first six months of 2010, according to company financials. Try as it might to diversify away from that revenue stream, for now, search-linked advertising is Google’s highly lucrative trick.
The company brought in $6.8 billion for the quarter ending June 30. Improving that by even a small percentage could bring a huge payout for Google.
For now, old-fashioned search is growing quickly on mobile. Google said about 33 percent of mobile searches related to users’ location, and mobile search grew by 50 percent, and searches on Google’s Android mobile operating system tripled, in the first half of 2010. But tech pundits theorize that users will increasingly use task-specific apps to find what they need rather than perform general searches.
The autonomous approach faces risks, from provoking a privacy backlash to draining users’ batteries through constant queries. But the biggest risk is that mobile users will drift away from Google, which has become all but synonymous with search on computers.
[Photo: dannysullivan]
Companies: Google
People: Eric Schmidt
Samsung’s new Orion processor brings dual-core power to phones
Samsung already has a plenty powerful mobile CPU with its Hummingbird processor — the brains behind its Android-powered Galaxy S line of phones — but today the company has announced it has even bigger plans for next year: A low-powered dual-core processor, dubbed Orion, with powerful 3D and video capabilities.
The processor combines two ARM Cortex A9 cores running at 1 gigahertz to create a computing powerhouse. Samsung says it provides 5 times the 3D performance of the Hummingbird processor, enough power to record and decode 1080 high-definition video, as well as the ability to power three displays. A manufacturer could use the chip to create a device with two screens, and it would still have enough power left over to send video to a computer monitor or HDTV via its built-in HDMI connection.
Orion is built with Samsung’s 45-nanometer low-power processor technology, meaning that it won’t drain battery life even though it’s packing a healthy amount of horsepower.
Samsung isn’t the only mobile chip-maker with dual-core plans. Intel is looking to finally get a piece of the smartphone pie with its new dual-core Atom processors, and Qualcomm is also working on a dual-core version of its popular Snapdragon mobile processor.
The move towards dual-core processors will make mobile devices significantly more powerful than they can be if restricted to a single CPU core. The challenge for chip manufacturers will be balancing the more powerful hardware with battery life concerns.
Samsung says its Orion processor will be available to a few customers later this year, and it will started building the chips en masse in the first half of 2011.
My6sense looks to soften information overload for Android users
There’s a lot of information coming through the tubes of the Internet these days, like RSS feeds, Facebook updates and Twitter posts. Most of them aren’t worth reading for the everyday user. My6sense’s new Android app, launching today, hopes to cut through most of that chaff.
The phenomenon of information overload online has opened up wide a new market for applications to chop out content readers don’t find interesting. My6sense’s app uses an intuition engine to figure out what users are interested in reading and getting rid of the rest of the noise. Its information isn’t ordered chronologically but by relevance as determined by the engine.
The focus for My6sense is on links: The app automatically removes any status update that doesn’t provide some kind of new content. Of the 20,000 updates that someone typically sees each day, the only ones that pop up in the feed are updates that contain some kind of link.
The Android app now integrates the oft-maligned Google Buzz as well, in addition to the usual assortment of media feeds. My6sense is a graduate of DEMO Spring 2010 conference, the product-launch event coproduced by VentureBeat. It started its offerings with an iPhone app.
The Israeli company has raised $2.5 million to date.
Companies: Facebook, Google, My6sense, Twitter
Verizon’s Galaxy S Android phone, the Samsung Fascinate, lands September 8
Verizon customers eagerly awaiting the carrier’s Galaxy S entry, the Samsung Fascinate, can finally start ordering the Android device online starting tomorrow for $199 with a two-year contract (after a $100 rebate). It will hit retail stores starting September 9.
With the Fascinate’s release, Samsung’s Galaxy S line of smartphones is finally available across all major U.S. carriers. AT&T has the Samsung Captivate, and T-Mobile has the Vibrant. On August 31, the Epic 4G (the only 4G-equipped Galaxy S device) landed on Sprint.
All of the phones share the same basic specifications — including a 1 gigahertz Hummingbird Samsung processor, 4″ Super AMOLED screen, 5 megapixel camera, and Android 2.1 with Samsung’s TouchWiz skin — but each has its own hardware and software customizations for its specific carrier. Sprint’s Epic 4G, for example, features a slide-out physical keyboard and a front-facing camera for video conferencing.
At Samsung’s New York launch event a few months ago, I spent some time testing out the Fascinate. Upon picking up the phone I quickly realized that Samsung wasn’t kidding about the quality of its Super AMOLED screen. It’s brighter and sharper than traditional OLED displays, like those on the Nexus One and Evo 4G, and it’s also built to perform better in sunlight. The 4-inch display noticeably dwarfed my iPhone 4. Performance-wise, the Fascinate was the most responsive Android phone I’ve used so far. Touchscreen interaction like swiping and pinching was fast and smooth, applications loaded quickly, and there was none of the sluggishness I’ve seen when testing the Evo 4G.
Samsung recently announced that it has sold 1 million Galaxy S phones across T-Mobile and AT&T over 45 days. It’s uncertain how well the Fascinate will sell on Verizon, since it’s already well-stocked with powerful Android devices like the Droid X, Droid 2, and Droid Incredible. But while it may be a tough sell for Samsung, the release of the Fascinate is good news for Google since it means there’s yet another high-end Android device on the market.
Nokia to finally confront iPhone, Android with new N8 and E7 smartphones next week
It’s taken several years of failing to sell phones to Americans, but Nokia is now finally gearing up to launch flagship N8 and E7 smartphones next week — both obviously meant to compete with Apple’s iPhone and Google’s Android — two sources with knowledge of its plans tell Reuters.
Nokia first announced its Facebook-friendly N8 camera in April. At the time, it was notable for its powerful 12-megapixel camera, 720p high-definition video recording capabilities, as well as the fact that it was running Nokia’s new Symbian^3 operating system. From the little we can gather about the E7, it appears to be a variation of the N8 with a slide-out hardware keyboard.
But while Nokia’s camera specs were impressive in April, they are less so today. Now most high-end smartphones include HD video recording, and are packing cameras in the 5 to 8-megapixel range that are plenty impressive. And just like with proper digital cameras, we’re finding that high megapixel counts don’t always make for better pictures (the iPhone 4’s 5MP camera blows away many 8MP competitors). Ultimately, having a 12MP camera may not be the massive draw the company thought it would be.
So Nokia is left with its Symbian^3 operating system — which is actually just a fancy name for the tenth iteration of the Symbian OS — to differentiate itself from the increasingly crowded smartphone market. You’d think that the company would have made an extra effort to blow users away with the OS, but judging from its Symbian^3 website, it doesn’t seem like it’s bringing anything new to the table. For example, Nokia touts that it has “real multitasking” — but Android sports that already, and Apple’s multitasking upgrades for iOS4 are satisfactory for most users.
Nokia’s more ambitious Meego platform — a joint open-source operating system developed in conjunction with Intel — will eventually make up its high-end devices, starting with its N9 phone. But it’s going to be some time before Meego devices are released. For now, its Symbian^3 devices are the closest things it has to iPhone/Android competitors.
Nokia is still an industry leader — it accounts for around 40 percent of handsets sold worldwide — but the company never managed to catch up to the advances made by the iPhone and Android. While the company was content to churn out slightly improved handsets every year, and never really focused its smartphones on America, Apple sparked a whole new vision of mobile devices with the iPhone. Google followed through quickly with Android, and managed to create a viable iPhone competitor.
At this point, it doesn’t seem like the N8, E7, or Symbian^3 will do much to turn the tide for Nokia on the smartphone battlefield, but at least now it’s actually trying.
Companies: nokia
Nike iPhone app keeps track of where, how fast you run
There was a time when going out for a run meant putting on some sneakers and leaving for a jog around the park. But if you need any indication of how far we’ve come, take a look at Nike’s latest Nike+ GPS app for the iPhone, released today on Apple’s App Store.
Using the iPhone’s GPS and accelerometer, the app lets you track not only your pace, distance, and calories when you go out for runs, but visually maps your run routes on Google Maps, showing you where you went and at which exact points you sprinted or slowed down.
Unlike previous Nike+ iPod offerings, no special sensors or kits are required for the app to function.
A couple of features worth mentioning are voice feedback — which lets you know how you’re doing — and the ability to tap on the map at anytime to see how far you’ve come. Additionally, some will appreciate its integration with the popular PowerSongs feature from other Nike+ apps, which lets you setup and play specific songs for different types of runs.
The app also syncs with Nikeplus.com, Nike’s online community, which has grown to over 3 million members since its debut back in 2006. Using the site, users can set challenges and track and share their progress through Facebook and Twitter.
While designed for the iPhone, users with an iPod Touch and iPad can also use it, albeit without the GPS tracking capabilities. The app is available on Apple’s App Store for $1.99.
We’ve covered a couple of similar applications before. RunKeeper launched an iPhone app that maps runners’ progress back in March of this year. And the San Francisco Country Transit Authority launched something similar for bicyclists in November 2009 called CycleTracks.