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BetaNews.Com (5 non lus)

Google's Nexus phone gets second chance thanks to Samsung

Publié: décembre 6, 2010, 11:37pm CET par Ed Oswald

By Ed Oswald, Betanews

As previously rumored, Google on Monday confirmed that it had tapped Samsung to manufacture the second incarnation of its Nexus Android phone, which will be the first to run the company's Android 2.3 "Gingerbread OS."
The Nexus S will sell for $199 with a two-year service contract through T-Mobile here in the US beginning December 16. It will also be offered without a contract for $529. Either way, Google has hopes that the second incarnation does a whole lot better than the first.
Google offered the Nexus One both as its second testing tool for its Android development partners, and as a regular consumer smartphone. It is believed that the Nexus One only sold about 100,000 units, and much of the blame for its poor sales could be Google's own strategy. Rather than sell it through a carrier, the company exclusively sold the Nexus One through its own Web-based store for most of its lifespan. Google shut down that Web-based store last May.
Google's next incarnation includes several enhancements over the original version, including front and rear-facing cameras and a "contour display" aimed at fitting comfortably in the palm of the hand and on the side of the face. It also includes 16GB of memory and support for NFC (near-field communication).
Other features include HD video recording and playback; Bluetooth support; Gryoscope, accelerometer and proximity sensors; and 802.11n support.
"As part of the Nexus brand, Nexus S delivers what we call a "pure Google" experience: unlocked, unfiltered access to the best Google mobile services and the latest and greatest Android releases and updates," VP of engineering Andy Rubin said in a blog post.
Unbeknown to most consumers, Android actually leads a double life. Devices like the Nexus S are built "with Google," meaning they show off all of the capabilities of a free open-source Android operating system, but polished up with all of Google's specialty services that aren't open source. The far more common versions of Android are based on the open source branch and given the stamp of the OEM or the carrier. Carriers have increasingly begun to exert their own control over these devices, either locking out standard functionality, or worse yet replacing Google's own services with those of its competitors.
Verizon is an example of this new threat to Android: the Samsung Fascinate features Bing rather than Google as the device's primary web search.
Copyright Betanews, Inc. 2010
Is someone fixing ebook prices?

Publié: décembre 6, 2010, 10:29pm CET par Joe Wilcox

By Joe Wilcox, Betanews

Google's rumored ebookstore is here at last, begging the question: Who has the better price on ebooks? It's certainly the question I'm asking looking ahead to holiday shopping. Ebooks are definitely on my list of gifts this year -- and yours? Early this afternoon, I did a quick comparison, so you won't have to. The results are disturbing. Something stinks like a diaper. It's not the differences in pricing but the uniformity across ebookstores that surprises. Shouldn't competition in a hot new category drive pricing variations?
The first consideration buying ebooks is consumption. On what device? Google's new store appeals for much the same as Amazon's: Broad device support. While Amazon and Google approach the solution in different ways, the result is essentially the same -- ebooks available for reading on Macs, PCs, smartphones and tablets. Uh-oh, there's no native Google ebookstore app for BlackBerry, Kindle or Windows Phone 7. Hey, but Google has got Barnes & Noble Nook and Sony Reader. Eat those bananas, Amazon. Of course, Nook does run Android. I wonder how those B&N folks are feeling about open source -- in this case open competition -- now?
I started my ebook comparison with an obscure but classic 1930's science fiction novella: "Who Goes There?" by John W. Campbell. Amazon's Kindle store describes: "A terrifying shape-changing alien at a frozen research station challenges its crew for survival in the most memorable sci-fi story of its decade." Amazon and Google approach reader reviews differently. Amazon customers post reviews in the Kindle store, while Google pulls them from social site GoodReads. I chuckled at the second Google ebookstore review, which begins: "I read the Kindle version of this short story." Oh, yeah.
I was most interested to see if Google would better Amazon pricing. After all, Google is king of free. I also checked pricing and availability at Apple's iBookstore and the Nook store. I expected that "premium-pricing everything else" Apple would ask the most for the novella? It's $6.99, and only available for iOS, which means iPad, iPhone and iPod touch, baby. But Barnes & Noble charges more: $7.19. Not even Apple could top the Nook ebook. Google does a little better than Apple -- $6.15. Amazon: $4.79. Well, hell on wheels. Amazon will get my money.
Perhaps old is unfair. So I searched for something more recent and more popular. Stieg Larsson's global bestseller The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo ebook is available from Amazon, Barnes & Noble and Google for $5.20. Ho. Ho. Ho. Equal pricing. But, whoops, for all Apple marketing blathering about convenience, the title doesn't show up in searches.
How about something really new and from the New York Times bestseller list: Decision Points by (cough, cough) former president George W. Bush. Once again, three ebookstores offer the title for the same price -- $9.99. I came up with nothing searching Apple's store. One more: Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card. It's available from all four stores for $5.99.
If this little exercise is any indicator, pricing won't be much of a differentiator among these four stores during the holidays. Google's entering the game isn't changing anything today. But shouldn't it? After all, the king of free pulls down prices and/or value pretty much everywhere else. Nearly uniform pricing is highly suspicious. Brick-and-mortar retailer book pricing does vary more, depending on initial discount, volume of inventory to sell (or unload if too many) and time on shelf, among many other factors. Remember: Ebooks don't grow old on the shelf. Retailers can't over-order or be compelled to offer overstock deals.
In looking at these four ebookstores, pricing is too similar. It stinks of publishers demanding prices be such and such to grant distribution. It wasn't that many months ago, that in a disagreement with publishers Amazon was forced to raise ebook prices and adopt an agency sales model. I have to wonder: Are major publishers fixing prices? (Or even the bookstores? After I posted, someone asked if I knew the ebookstores were using the agency model, which in theory gives them some discretion over price. Of course, I knew, which is why I expected more price variances. If there is little or none, the first question to ask is "Why Not?")
US Antitrust law looks harshly on price fixing, because it causes harm to consumers. They don't receive the benefits, lower pricing among them, of companies vying for the same customers. What's missing from my casual review is truly fluid pricing. I randomly selected another five titles, with similar result: Same prices across all the stores (and some more titles not available from Apple). The more recent, or more popular the title, the more likely all the stores sell the ebook for the same price. Does that sound right to you? Is that also your observation? Please respond in comments.
[Editor's Note: This analysis started out simply as a price-comparison story, assuming that prices would vary across ebookstores. Uniform pricing was unexpected.]
Copyright Betanews, Inc. 2010
What's new in Android 2.3 'Gingerbread?' Tablets, NFC, Games

Publié: décembre 6, 2010, 8:13pm CET par Tim Conneally

By Tim Conneally, Betanews

Monday was a big day for Android as Google simultaneously unveiled the latest Android Developer phone, the Samsung-built Nexus S, and Gingerbread, the newest version (v 2.3) of the Android mobile operating system.
Android 2.3 includes performance upgrades and a few superficial additions for users, but the major new additions to the platform have been made with developers in mind, and they may not be visible to users right away, but they will result in exciting new devices a little further down the road.
Near Field Communications (NFC)
Undoubtedly the biggest addition to Android this time around is support for hardware supporting Near Field Communications, the low-power wireless technology that enables quick data transactions simply by passing the phone near an NFC terminal. This is the fundamental technology in "wallet phones," that AT&T, Verizon Wireless, and T-Mobile USA recently formed a joint venture to support.
SIP support
Developers can now build apps that support internet telephony over the Session Interface Protocol. With the SIP API, applications can now have voice calling features without having to manage sessions, transport-level communication, or audio.
New Sensors
Gingerbread now offers developers the ability to utilize many different types of sensors not previously supported by Android, including: gyroscope, rotation vector, linear acceleration, gravity, and barometer. Additionally, screen orientation has also finally received "reverse" orientations. That is, now instead of just right side up landscape and portrait modes, the screen will re-orient itself no matter which end of the device is facing up.
Front-facing camera support
While video chat already exists on one Android phone, the ability for an app to automatically detect and remember more than one camera on different types of devices was not present. New camera APIs now let applications query the device for the number of cameras it has available, and the capabilities of each one.
Bigger Screen Sizes
The Android SDK now includes a new resource qualifier, "xlarge," to let applications utilize tablet-sized screens. Previously, Android only had Small, Medium, and Large, which presented some limitations for companies looking to put Android on a device with, for example, a laptop-sized screen.
Better Performance
The Dalvik virtual machine that is the heart and soul of Android has gotten a concurrent garbage collector, and the JIT compiler that was added in 2.2 has received further optimizations, the OpenGL ES video drivers have been updated, and support for the Khronos OpenSL ES audio API has been added, to let applications control audio input, output, and processing directly from the native code.
Experience Upgrades
Behind the homescreen UI, Android is generally based on a white background. The notification bar and all sub-menus were all black text on white. With Gingerbread, that has been changed to black and grey. The soft keyboard now has multi-touch events for alternative key and numerical input. Before, users would have to switch keyboards or longpress individual keys for punctuation and numbers; in Gingerbread, users can now hold "shift" or "?123" and tap on a key for the alternate text or symbol to pop up.
Also, the application manager is now a button in the options menu in both the home screen and launcher. This way, users can now just hit their menu button and have access to the application manager from their most commonly-used screens. Within the manager, a new tab dedicated to running applications has been added, which shows the active apps and the resources they're consuming.
In the end, this is a very significant update to Android because it branches the OS out into new territory with support for new screen sizes, new sensors, and new functionality. Consumers may not immediately see the benefit, and there will be the usual cries of "fragmentation!" from users still running 2.1, but there is an awful lot here for developers to toy around with, and the fruits of those new features will be borne within the next few months.
Copyright Betanews, Inc. 2010
Google launches eBooks, cross-platform e-bookstore and reader

Publié: décembre 6, 2010, 5:47pm CET par Tim Conneally

By Tim Conneally, Betanews

On Monday morning, Google officially unveiled its entry into the hotly competitve e-book market with an e-reader app called Google eBooks and a store called the Google eBookstore. The products are not new, but are rather a unification of many of Google's digital book efforts.
Like Amazon has done with its own Kindle platform, Google eBooks is a cross-platform solution for reading digital books across multiple devices. Currently, users can read Google eBooks in JavaScript-enabled browsers, in iOS and Android-powered devices, and on any e-reader supporting Adobe's eBook platform (which includes Barnes and Noble's Nook, Sony's Reader, and at least one of Borders' many e-readers.) There is not yet support for the Amazon Kindle, Kobo, BlackBerry, or Windows Mobile 7.
Users browse and download books in the Google eBookstore, which is currently 100% web-based. If you're using Google Books for Android, for example, hitting the "Get eBooks" button at the top of the screen launches the bookstore in a browser.
To buy Google eBooks, the user needs a Google Checkout account. However, Google's catalog of ebooks is also available through a number of partner resellers who accept other forms of payment. Alibris and Powell's Books, for example, accept PayPal and standard credit cards, so a Google Checkout account is not mandatory.
Google eBooks and the eBookstore were anything but surprise appearances on Monday. As far back as four years ago, Google's intention of selling e-books online was well-known, and it was originally going to be an extension of the Book Search project, which was itself an extension of the Google Print project.
Now that Google's commercial e-book endeavor is available to the public, the notion that the e-reader market is hardware driven should be more easily put to rest.
Copyright Betanews, Inc. 2010
Facebook makes user profiles more visual

Publié: décembre 6, 2010, 4:32pm CET par Tim Conneally

By Tim Conneally, Betanews

Though it is primarily known as a social networking site, Facebook is actually one of the top destinations for photo sharing, and a new user profile design change unveiled Monday ups the visibility of Facebook photos and encourages users to share personal information in a more visual way.
Two years ago, Facebook came forward with some staggering figures about the photo sharing taking place on its sites, which amounted to between 2-3 Terabytes of photos being updated daily with a peak of 300,000 images per second. Facebook would serve about 15 billion photos, and the storage dedicated just to photography amounted to more than a petabyte.
Since that time, Facebook has gone from approximately 35 million users to more than 500 million, and more than 3 billion photos are now being added to Facebook every month.
Facebook's new profile design adds photographs that the user has been recently tagged in to the main page, and information about location, age, job, relationship status, and more have been moved to a space immediately beneath the user's display name, turning it all into something of a caption for the pictures. "Likes" and interests are now represented by a row of images, and friends can now be categorized into user-defined lists (e.g. "co-workers," "school friends," etc.)
Ultimately, the new profiles don't represent a major shift in functionality for Facebook, but instead reflect the visual nature in which its users consume information posted there.
Copyright Betanews, Inc. 2010