loconet writes "This article in Gizmodo claims that Android's fragmented model is harming it, but Google has the power to save it. The rumored Google Phone could be a ploy to upset the wireless industry, or it could be an expensive niche device. Either way, it would be a bid to take Android back from the companies that seem hell-bent on destroying it. '...once handset manufacturers (and carriers, through handset manufacturers) have built their own version of Android, they've effectively taken it out of the development stream. Updating it is their responsibility, which they have to choose to uphold. Or not! Who cares? The phones are already sold."

This article at CNet takes a detailed look at the growth of social gaming through Apple's iPhone, a market many developers — and Apple themselves — are still struggling to figure out. The piece also speculates on how such games and networks will continue to evolve. Quoting: "While competition has spawned better features among these services, the future brings a growing need for a more unified network. Even if all these networks begin to become impossible to differentiate, users are eventually going to want a less-disjointed platform when jumping from game to game, and app to app. Thus far Facebook, and even Twitter to some degree have provided that constant, just by giving users a way to log in to these platforms. The unification can shake out in a number of ways though, the most likely of which is consolidation. Open Feint can continue to grow until it's snatched up by a larger company (like Apple). Or it can begin absorbing, or muscling out the other, less popular networks. As mentioned before, Apple plays a big part in this: not only in how it changes the hardware, but also how it continues to evolve the business of the App Store and information sharing between applications."

MojoKid writes "Atom-based netbooks have come a long way since they were first introduced. 7 and 8-inch netbooks are no longer the norm, and availability of 12-inch netbooks is on the rise. The newest member of the Asus Eee PC lineup is the Eee PC 1201N, and it really stands out in the crowd of netbook in terms of specifications. The machine features a 12.1" HD display, new dual-core Atom 330 CPU, 2GB of DDR2 RAM, Windows 7 Home Premium, an HDMI output and NVIDIA's Ion chipset with integrated GPU. HotHardware was able to demo the system's ability to handle more advanced benchmarks, thanks in part to the Ion GPU. It's also the first netbook they tested that could actually play older 3D titles respectably. You won't get Crysis running but lighter duty titles can be played back nicely if you tone the details down and lower the resolution. The 1201N also played back 720p and 1080p content without stuttering, and the dual-core CPU allowed enough headroom to multitask while videos were playing."

Knowzy writes "After five years behind a paywall, McDonalds plans to stop charging for its Wi-Fi in mid-January in the US. According to the Dallas Morning News, you aren't even required to make a purchase — 'free is free,' a spokesman said. It's also been widely reported that they won't impose time limits on your surfing. With around 20,000 free hotspots between McDonald's and Starbucks (who went free[ish] earlier this year), anyone still charging for Wi-Fi is going to look foolish, if not downright greedy."

MBCook writes "Despite claims earlier in the year that the iPhone was hated by Japanese consumers (later disproved), the iPhone has been doing well in the land of the rising sun and the evidence is in. Apple has taken 46% of the Japanese smartphone market, cutting in half the once 27% market share of the previous lead, Advance Sharp W-Zero3 (Japanese site). The article includes a large chart of the market share of Japanese smartphones over the last 3 years."

Barence writes "Mozilla claims that its new Firefox Mobile browser could be the beginning of the end for the hugely popular app stores created by Apple and its ilk. Mozilla claims Firefox Mobile will have the fastest Javascript engine of any mobile browser, and that will allow developers to write apps once for the web, instead of multiple versions for the different mobile platforms. 'As developers get more frustrated with quality assurance, the amount of handsets they have to buy, whether their security updates will get past the iPhone approval process ... I think they'll move to the web,' Mozilla's mobile VP, Jay Sullivan, told PC Pro. 'In the interim period, apps will be very successful. Over time, the web will win because it always does.'"

zerothink writes "American student Lily Sussman, 21, upon entry into Israel from Taba (Egypt, Sinai) caught Israeli border police in grumpy mood — after two hours of questions and searching through her belongings they decided to put three bullets through her laptop. Explanation? 'I'm sorry but we had to blow up your laptop.' Haaretz also covered the story." All three bullets missed the hard disk.

schleprock63 writes "The Ohio state supreme court has decided that a cell phone found on a suspect cannot be searched without a warrant. The majority based this decision on a federal case that deemed a cell phone not to be a 'closed container,' and therefore not searchable without a warrant. The argument of the majority contended that a cell phone does not contain physical objects and therefore is not a container. One dissenting judge argued that a cell phone is a container that simply contains data. He argued that the other judges were 'needlessly theorizing' about the contents of a cell phone. He compared the data contained within an address book that would be searchable." The article notes that this was apparently the first time the question has come up before any state supreme court.

CWmike writes "Google isn't talking publicly about reported plans to sell a powerful Android-based smartphone called the Nexus One directly to consumers next year, but the idea is already raising eyebrows with analysts. The chief concern is that selling an unlocked phone directly to consumers, probably online, could be twice as expensive as buying one through a carrier. The unlocked approach has largely failed in the US, with the world's biggest phone manufacturer, Nokia, doing poorly with the concept. Nokia recently announced that its two direct-sales stores in Chicago and New York will close early next year, while online sales of unlocked devices will continue. Conceivably, Google could offer its phone at a price comparable to a subsidized phone from a carrier — as long as customers agree to receive mobile ads on the devices. Since advertising is central to Google's revenue model, that approach might make some sense, analysts said. 'Google doesn't want to be in the phone business or the mobile carrier business, so this must be about something else, and that's the advertising business, since Google is in the business of selling ads,' said Kevin Burden, an analyst at ABI Research. In one mobile advertising model being tested in Germany, users agree to receive a certain number of ads on their phones to reduce their monthly cellular and texting rates, although reducing the up-front cost of the actual device is relatively novel. Reinforcing the idea of using mobile advertising with direct sales of unlocked phones, Google bought AdMob in November."

garg0yle writes "A team has managed to open the Barnes and Noble Nook e-reader, gaining full access to the operating system. From the article: 'The Nook is now a computer running a full Android operating system, with a built-in, free cellular connection to the internet. It also has a battery that lasts days, not hours.' They are documenting their progress on the Nook Devs wiki."

xchg writes "It's still not called the 'Google Phone,' but the Nexus One — to be made by HTC — is as close as I think we're going to get. The WSJ cites sources familiar with Google's plans and says that Google has designed this handset and plans to sell it directly to consumers, unlocked."

curtS writes "The Economist's tech editor reviews the ever-more-detailed assistance of mobile GPS devices, and wonders if the attention-sucking visual complexity isn't more trouble than it's worth. He contrasts the simplicity of London's Underground map (not directionally accurate but visually easy to understand) and his own habit of dimming the display and using the audio commands for guidance."

A story at the BBC notes increasing pressure from the European Commission to set standards that would limit the maximum volume on portable MP3 players. Their reasoning is that it would protect users from damaging their hearing after listening to loud music for extended periods. Quoting: "This follows a report last year warning that up to 10m people in the EU face permanent hearing loss from listening to loud music for prolonged periods. EU experts want the default maximum setting to be 85 decibels, according to BBC One's Politics Show. Users would be able to override this setting to reach a top limit of 100 decibels. ... Some personal players examined in testing facilities have been found to reach 120 decibels, the equivalent of a jet taking off, and no safety default level currently applies, although manufacturers are obliged to print information about risks in the instruction manuals. Modern personal players are seen as more dangerous than stationary players or old-fashioned cassette or disk players because they can store hours of music and are often listened to while in traffic with the volume very high to drown out outside noise."

alphadogg, as is his wont, sends in a Network World piece on the resurgent rumors of a Google Phone. "Google has handed out a new mobile phone running its Android software to some employees, stirring another wave of speculation that the oft-rumored Google Phone is real. In a blog post on Saturday morning, Google said the phones are being distributed so that workers can experiment with new mobile features. It did not say the device will be a Google-branded phone. Since even before Google unveiled Android, onlookers have wondered whether the search giant will release its own phone. Instead, it released an open source operating system that other hardware vendors can use to make phones."

jangel writes "Stanford University researchers have demonstrated a way to turn ordinary paper into a battery, which may be crumpled or pressed into any form. It's said the technology promises greater durability, higher efficiency, and faster energy transfer than traditional batteries. The technique uses special ink made of carbon nanotubes and silver nanowires. Thanks to the small diameters of these materials, the ink sticks strongly to the fibrous paper, allowing the battery to be extremely durable. The paper battery could last through 40,000 charge-discharge cycles — at least an order of magnitude more than lithium batteries. According to the researchers, the paper batteries will be low-cost, may be crumpled or folded, and can even be soaked in acidic or basic solutions, yet their performance does not degrade. 'We just haven't tested what happens when you burn it,' one of the researchers quipped." This is the same Stanford research team, lead by Yi Cui, whose work with nanotechnology for battery applications we have discussed before. We've also delved into alternate routes to the holy grail of the ultra-thin battery.

andylim writes "An in-depth study of over 14,000 London drivers by the Transport Research Laboratory has found an increase in the number of London motorists making and taking calls using their handsets at the wheel between 2008 and 2009, even though harsher penalties were introduced in 2007. It seems that most people, at least in London, still don't respect the fact that there's a much higher risk of being involved in an accident if you're using your cell phone."

Charbax writes "Last April, Microsoft argued that it controlled the netbook OS market for devices sold in certain Microsoft-friendly US retail stores, while ABI Research claims that Linux actually has 32% of the worldwide netbook market, and that its market-share is growing. At the recent Netbook World Summit in Paris France, Aaron J. Seigo, Community leader at the KDE Foundation, and Arnaud Laprévote, CTO at Mandriva Linux, give us their estimation for next year's Linux market share (video) in the consumer laptop market. Their estimation is that Linux will dominate in ARM-powered laptops and that those may take over a significant share of the overall laptop market by their significantly cheaper prices (as low as $80), longer battery life (as long as 20-40 hours on a small battery using the Pixel Qi screens), as well as lower size and weight. Running some of the Chromium OS builds for ARM available shortly and having a full browser experience on those cheaper and better ARM-powered Linux laptops could make it a significant mass market success to shake up the Intel and Microsoft consumer PC/laptop monopoly in its boots."

CWmike contributes this excerpt from Computerworld: "For a technology that's all about being fast, 802.11n Wi-Fi sure took its sweet time to become a standard, writes Steven J. Vaughan Nichols. In fact, until September 2009, it wasn't, officially, even a standard. But that didn't stop vendors from implementing it for several years beforehand, causing confusion and upset when networking gear that used draft standards from different suppliers wouldn't always work at the fastest possible speed when connected. It wasn't supposed to be that way. But, for years, the Wi-Fi hardware big dogs fought over the 802.11n protocol like it was a chew toy. The result: it took five drama-packed years for the standard to come to fruition. The delay was never over the technology. In fact, the technical tricks that give 802.11n its steady connection speeds of 100Mbps to 140Mbps have been well-known for years."

MojoKid writes "Samsung is betting there's room for more in the smartphone market and has unveiled its new bada OS. The name 'bada,' means 'ocean' in Korean and was chosen to convey the 'limitless variety of potential applications which can be created using the new platform.' Samsung claims the OS is extremely simple for developers, saying that bada was built to be extremely interactive with its users — including flash control, motion sensing, fine-tuned vibration control and face detection. Samsung is hoping developers will take this user interface and create a variety of applications focused around it, and thus provide different types of apps than exist for the iPhone and Android OS. The bada OS has a variety of sensors, including accelerometers, tilt, weather, proximity and activity. Samsung will be hosting a series of Developer Days in Seoul, London and San Francisco, among other cities, throughout 2010."

eldavojohn writes "Time Inc., News Corp., Conde Nast, Hearst Corp., and Meredith Corp. are teaming up to create a digital newsstand and somewhat open format that 'can render our content beautifully on those devices that come to market' instead of the gray inked Kindle's energy conscious display. Devices are being made for the new format with the launch coming next year. The format will also target smart phones and tablet computers. Will this pose a threat at all to the Kindle?"