Nexus One Google Phone

Nexus One Google Phone

The Nexus One seems like a real sleek device and since it is manufactured by HTC, the device should be rugged and a well built smartphone. I am looking forward to hearing about this device when the official announcement is made and hopefully get one to try down the road. More details available @ ENGADGET

MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif. — Dec. 8, 2009 — Today Eye-Fi Inc. announced a collaboration with Google’s Picasa that makes sharing and storing memories effortless, just in time for the holidays.  Anyone who purchases 200GB or more of extra Google storage will receive a free Eye-Fi wireless memory card, which lets users send photos and videos directly from their camera to the Web.

Users can enjoy automatic backup of their memories with Google and Eye-Fi, and store up to 100,000 5MB photos under the 200GB plan.  The combined power of Google’s Picasa Web Albums and Eye-Fi’s automatic geotagging service also lets users easily view their photos plotted on a map where the image was taken, and search or organize photos by location.

Google and Eye-Fi have the common vision of leveraging the power of ‘the cloud’ to provide effortless ways for consumers to store and share their memories,” said Jef Holove, CEO for Eye-Fi. “Together we’re giving consumers the most convenient way to get their memories off the camera, and onto the Web.  We’re enabling users to focus on the memories, and not the chore of offloading images from a camera and storing them.”

Google’s storage solutions featuring the Eye-Fi card start at 200GB per year for $50 and are available for customers in the United States and Canada from www.picasa.google.com/eyefi.html. With this promotion, the free Eye-Fi Home video card (a $69.99 value) also comes with one free year of Web Share and Geotagging services (an additional $24.98 value), which can be extended with continued use of Google’s Web properties.

This marks the latest development in Google and Eye-Fi’s ongoing collaboration.  Picasa Web Albums was one of the first photo sharing sites to integrate with Eye-Fi, and YouTube became the first online sharing site where Eye-Fi users could automatically upload videos.  To date, Eye-Fi users have uploaded more than 2.7 million photos to Picasa. 

“By giving people a better way to upload and share their photos, Picasa Web Albums and Eye-Fi help people share life’s memories easily – with the added peace of mind that their information is backed up in the cloud” said Google Product Management Director Brian Axe.

About Eye-Fi

Founded in 2005, Eye-Fi is dedicated to building products and services that help consumers manage, nurture and share their visual memories. Eye-Fi’s patent-pending technology wirelessly and automatically uploads photos and videos from digital imaging devices, including digital cameras and the iPhone, to online, in-home and retail destinations. Headquartered in Mountain View, Calif., the company’s investors include LMS Capital, Opus Capital, Shasta Ventures and TransLink Capital. More information is available at http://eye.fi.

Given that, how will Linux ever reach 10% to 20% of the market? The answer: It never will. It will remain a niche operating system, and a very good one at that.”

I do not agree with Preston Gralla in his overall assessment.  First Linux is not just one specific operating system but a fully configurable core OS that has many variants in the marketplace. If you go HERE you can see that there are 220 different distributions of Linux currently supported worldwide. Much of the linux OS versions used are not directly visible to us since these are embedded into various hardware products we use everyday like a Wi-Fi Router as one example. With this recession, many hardware manufacturers of laptops and desktop PC makers are looking at Android as one example of a Linux operating system that might be suitable for their products.

Manufacturers are now looking for a FREE operating system that will replace the  royalty or licensing fee based operating system like Microsoft Windows. Down the road, I can see a Linux distribution like the Ubuntu becoming more popular in the desktop, server and mobile device category once Android from Google starts to take off. Some may argue that Android will never take off but I feel that given time, the Google operating system will certainly be a contender in the mobile marketplace. The mobile phone is only one of many hardware categories that will have Android embedded in them down the road.

The huge difference between companies previously developing their operating system was the research and development aspects were always kept under wraps with complicated “non-discolure agreements”. Therefore, many companies that were working on developing new uses for a given operating were forbidden to speak about the development until the product was ready to be showcased. Nowadays, the pre-hype and promotion is key to the success of a developing productline and we are hearing reports about how the Android OS (operating system) is being evaluated by Dell, HP and others on their laptops. ASUS, the manufacturer of netbooks which already uses Linux can now run the Android version of Linux which is optimized for mobile devices.

Since there are differences in hardware, and power requirements with a large laptop, netbook and Mobile phones, there is still extensive work to be done to create the proper drivers and apps to take advantage of the underlining hardware. With this in mind, the interest is still very strong with hardware manufacturers and we will see other products coming out before the end of the year.

I feel that the Google Android still has some major work ahead to acquire consumer acceptance but it is still way too early to call them out of the mobility marketplace just yet. The potential of the existing Android OS is too great to be left in the dust at this point when other mobile operating systems currently popular add a large expense to hardware manufacturers. The OPEN SOURCE aspect of Android is a huge benefit with little or no cost to manufacturers thus making the change to Android very attractive. I am looking forward to when we will start seeing more Android OS based hardware devices in the near future.

PPCTECH is offerring a 25% discount on all accessory orders processed tomorrow April 15th. If you have a PDA, cell phone or iPod, you can go to www.ppctech.com to place your order. Use the code TAXDISC09 during check out in the special instructions/comments field to recieve your discount.

Google Releases Update to Android Software

Developes can now get an early look at the latest version of the Android SDK version 1.5. This is not the final release candidate and will certainly be slightly different from the final release of V1.5. What this early look allows developers is the ability to prepare for the actual final release.

What’s New

- The user interface has been updated

- Improved performance

- Video recording and playback

- Bluetooth A2DP and AVCRP profile support

- Much More . . .

Go HERE for more details on the latest improvements.

You can go HERE to download the early look V1.5 SDK.

Now that Microsoft has announced a new online mobility store to compete with the Apple iTunes store. The war for the shrinking disposable income will begin. In the end, the battle will not only be between the different operating systems and hardware only. A good percentage of iPhone and iTouch users are not happy with how the iTunes store operate. This frustration also translates over to the software developers that must wait months for their newly completed title to be approved and made available for access on the iTunes store. Developers will soon have a non Apple store where titles can be made available for sale quickly and potentially with a greater return in profit. This is done via a third party installer called Cydia. Cydia will allow you to choose from a number of different download sites and even from sites that will be offerring commercial titles for purchase.

I have been an avid developer on the Windows Mobile platform and there has never been any limitations on how or where a mobile title was available for download. Either a title can be downloaded as a standard PC file and synced over to the mobile device or installed directly on the device via a CAB file. The Windows Mobile developer has always had the ability to sell their titles via their own online store and indirectly via stores like Handango, Clickgamer, PDAMill and many others.

Mobility Products in Canada

I have always admired the Apple mobility products from afar. Being in Canada means that we have typically been 2 – 3 years behind the United States in access to innovative products from around the world. The conservative nature of the big carriers and business in general within Canada means, the “Wait and See” attitude is always front and centre.

With the increasing number of foreign investment and foreign company takeovers in Canada means that more aggressive marketing and leadership is starting to appear in Canada. I truly hope this trend to be market leaders in new technology continues and we start to see more innovative products created around the world become available in Canada quickly. Many techies have always taken advantage of travel to the States to purchase mobile products months and even years before hitting the Canadian marketplace.

I have been waiting for the Eye-fi product to be released directly in Canada and it finally arrived via Black’s Photo around November of 2008 according to Eye-fi. I have not seen it yet locally in any of the Black’s stores but is available online. This at least is a great start to see an exciting product available in Canada less than 12 months after being widely available in the States. More companies can learn from a fast growing company like Eye-fi and penetrate the Canadian market where many tech savvy users exist.