T-Mobile drops price of Garminfone already |
- T-Mobile drops price of Garminfone already
- New leaked photos of tiny Apple touchscreens, new 'Shuffle' coming?
- China will renew our web license, says Google
- YouTube now supports 4k resolution
- NTP suing Apple, Google, HTC, LG, Microsoft and Motorola over email delivery patents
- Apple bans developer from iTunes after fraud
- Android smartphone market share growing briskly
- Hulu to offer ad-free Hulu Plus, as well?
- Upcoming Apple TV will push .99 cent rentals
| T-Mobile drops price of Garminfone already Posted: 09 Jul 2010 06:34 PM PDT  T-Mobile released the first Android-powered Garmin smartphone in May to mixed reviews, and slow sales. This week, the wireless carrier has dropped the price of the phone, from $200 to $130, looking to keep the price competitive in a world where Froyo will soon be the norm. The phone has a 3.5-inch screen, 3MP camera with autofocus, and because of the GPS, the pictures can be geo-tagged. The GPS, as standard, works over 3G and Wi-Fi. While those specs are not impressive, the Garminfone is notable because of its GPS system, which has on-board US maps, text-to-speech, full driving/walking/public transportation directions, real-time traffic, weather, local events, movie listings and even gas prices. The next best feature is "Garmin Voice Studio" which lets users "record and customize voice directions which can also be shared with family and friends." Because it is more a GPS with phone capabilities than anything else, the device will come with a charging window and a dashboard mount for the car.
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| New leaked photos of tiny Apple touchscreens, new 'Shuffle' coming? Posted: 09 Jul 2010 06:07 PM PDT  Apple.pro has shown off a couple of new photos today of an Apple-branded touchscreen that is only a bit bigger than 1x1 inches, leading to speculation that the upcoming revised Shuffle will use the display. Although less plausible, the site speculated that Apple may be making a foray into the wristwatch market, releasing a large touchscreen watch. The display is too small for an iPod Nano, unless Apple completely changes the design. In the past, Apple.pro has shown off parts for Apple products before they launch, like leaking white iPhone 4 parts earlier this year. Apple has been negatively in the news recently, thanks to antenna issues with the newly launched iPhone 4.  
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| China will renew our web license, says Google Posted: 09 Jul 2010 02:51 PM PDT  Google CEO Eric Schmidt has said this week that he expects China to renew the company's Web license, as it has been recently revised. China had threatened to not renew the license, saying it disapproved of the way the search giant tried to sidestep Google's censorship rules by directing its domain to Hong Kong, where searches were unfiltered. While Schmidt believes the license will be renewed, he admitted the ball is fully in China's court. "Our operations in China are completely at the discretion of the Chinese government," he added. The situation began in January when Google said it would stop censoring search results, which violates Chinese law. Ministry of Industry and Information Technology spokesman Wang Lijian says the decision could take months, however.
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| YouTube now supports 4k resolution Posted: 09 Jul 2010 01:43 PM PDT  Today during the VidCon 2010 conference, Google has announced that YouTube will now support video with 4k resolution, over double what the current 1080p standard allows for. 4k has a pixel resolution of 4096 x 3072, whereas 1080p has resolution of 1920 x 1080. "To give some perspective on the size of 4K, the ideal screen size for a 4K video is 25 feet; IMAX movies are projected through two 2k resolution projectors," says Ramesh Sarukkai, a YouTube engineer. Many users will not be able to even run the videos at this point, as it requires "super fast broadband," likely with 15Mbps as a bare minimum. You can test out streaming a 4k video here (click on the link and switch resolution to "original"):
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| NTP suing Apple, Google, HTC, LG, Microsoft and Motorola over email delivery patents Posted: 09 Jul 2010 01:26 PM PDT  The intellectual property holding company NTP has sued giants Apple, Google, HTC, LG, Microsoft and Motorola this week over patents pertaining to the delivery of email on smartphones. Each company either makes smartphones, or creates the software used on them. NTP is alleging that each company has infringed on up to eight patents. The holding company won over $600 million in damages from BlackBerry maker RIM in 2006 for a similar suit. NTP has been called a "patent troll" by the industry, one that is making money off the innovation of others. NTP does not agree. "Use of NTP's intellectual property without a license is just plain unfair to NTP and its licensees," said Donald E. Stout, NTP's co-founder, via CNet. "Unfortunately, litigation is our only means of ensuring the inventor of the fundamental technology on which wireless email is based, Tom Campana, and NTP shareholders are recognized, and are fairly and reasonably compensated for their innovative work and investment. We took the necessary action to protect our intellectual property." (Pic found here)
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| Apple bans developer from iTunes after fraud Posted: 09 Jul 2010 01:11 PM PDT  Apple has banned That Nguyen, the popular app developer, from iTunes and the Apple App Store, after it was discovered he hacked 400 iTunes accounts, and used them to boost sales of his comic book apps. The company also said it has now tightened security, and similar situations will not occur again. Nguyen had, at his peak, 42 of the top 50 book apps in the market. All apps have now been removed and the developer banned due to violations of the "developer Program License Agreement including fraudulent purchase patterns". Apple also recommended that users with compromised accounts should contact their banks and change their passwords. As part of strengthening their security, iTunes users will likely be asked to enter their credit card security code more often when making purchases.
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| Android smartphone market share growing briskly Posted: 09 Jul 2010 12:00 AM PDT  ComScore has released their latest U.S. market share figures for the smartphone market, and Google's open-source Android platform has seen explosive growth since March, when the previous results were released. RIM remained the clear leader with 41.7 percent share, although the BlackBerry maker lost some share, falling from over 42 percent in the previous period. Apple stayed stuck in second, with 24.4 percent, a noticeable drop from their 25.4 percent share at the end of February. Continuing its multi-year trend, Microsoft's Windows Mobile platform fell significantly, from 15.1 percent to 13.2 percent. The big winner was Android which jumped almost 40 percent, from 9 percent to 13 percent. Android is expected to see a similar jump in the next quarter. ComScore adds that about 235 million Americans over the age of 13 have mobile devices. 
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| Hulu to offer ad-free Hulu Plus, as well? Posted: 08 Jul 2010 11:18 PM PDT  Hulu announced last week the launch of Hulu Plus, a premium version of the popular streaming site that will cost $10 per month. Buyers of the subscription get expanded content, and the ability to play the shows on their HDTVs, Blu-ray players, Xbox 360 (with Gold subscription), PS3 and iPad and iPhone. Hulu Plus gives users season passes for most current shows, which is a massive improvement from only being able to watch the trailing five episodes of a given show. You will also be able to watch back seasons of the shows. The major complaint of the service, so far, is that there are still ads, just like in the free version. Today, CEO Jason Kilar says the company is considering offering a more expensive version of the service, one that will completely ad-free. Kilar also noted that there would be "many" models for the distribution service, but did not elaborate. Any ad-free model would likely cost $15-20 per month.
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| Upcoming Apple TV will push .99 cent rentals Posted: 08 Jul 2010 10:45 PM PDT According to sources cited by NewTeeVee, Apple is looking to take the unpopular Apple TV set-top box to the next level, bringing TV episode rentals down to .99 cents, half the current pricing model on iTunes and elsewhere. Apple is currently trying to get TV programmers to drop the price on rentals, with mostly everything else remaining the same. Once purchased, consumers have 30 days to watch the video with rentals then expiring 24 hours after you start. What will be different, besides the pricing, will be that episodes will now be streamed, within the cloud, and not downloaded, following the broader industry trend led by Netflix and Hulu. Although still unconfirmed, the upcoming Apple TV is said to use iOS 4, the operating system used on the iPhone. It will also use flash memory, moving away from the HDD seen in the original model. Because the device will ship with (likely) under 128GB of flash memory, downloading makes little sense when streaming can be done efficiently. Apple's iTunes platform remains the clear market leader for music and movie/TV downloads, so Apple should have significant clout with content producers whilst trying to get them to drop the price of rentals.
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