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Sunday, October 3, 2010

Verizon Wireless to Pay Millions in Refunds

Verizon Wireless said on Sunday that it would pay up to $90 million in refunds to 15 million cellphone customers who were wrongly charged for data sessions or Internet use, one of the largest customer refunds by a telecommunications company.

WebP: Google's new attempt at speeding up the web

In their latest attempt to make the web even faster, Google has devised their own image format to rival JPEG. Since forever, JPEG has been doing a great job of compressing photographic images — it doesn’t support transparency, like other formats, but it does what it was meant to do very well.

Google has determined that JPEG isn’t the best format for that anymore. WebP is a new compression that achieves an impressive average 30% reduction in file size for images. Google will be proposing an update for WebKit that will make viewing those images in a browser actually possible.

Now, I’m not complaining here — anything to make the web faster is good in my books — but I have a question. Why are we worried about fractionally speeding up the web when we live in a broadband world that’s just getting faster and faster anyway? The web is speeding up far more quickly from just network speeds improving than tweaking compression on files that are usually only used to show photographs online.

Sure, Sites like Flickr might see notable speedups — with each page showing several jpeg images typically — but most webpages largely use png or gif images (when you can’t do something in CSS).

I’ll stop whining now. WebP is still cool, and like I said before, anything to make the web faster is good in my books.

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By Garett Rogers | October 3, 2010, 9:26am PDT

Saturday, October 2, 2010

Google Updates 'Car Home for Android' App

Car Home for Android is an application that provides lots of the tools drivers want at their fingertips when behind the wheel. Google on Friday rolled out updates to the app, including new features like shortcuts, icon colors, and a background wallpaper option.

"Car Home for Android turns your Android phone into a better driving companion by providing you with quick access to key applications on the go: GPS navigation, voice-activated commands, contacts, and more," Markus Mühlbauer, Google Automotive's manager of engineering and product, said on the Google Mobile blog. "We're releasing a new version of Car Home for Android which makes it easier to customize Car Home to get the information you need faster."

The app can now be automatically launched when linked with a special dock mounted on the windshield or when it's connected with Bluetooth. You can also customize for one-touch access to certain apps and phone information via "Add shortcut," as well as select personal wallpaper settings.

The free app is available in Android Market for phones running Android 2.2.

The updated app debuts at an opportune time. This week, several studies related to the dangers of distracted driving have been released. A study released Thursday by Vlingo revealed that 35 percent of drivers are using their phones to text while driving, and a study by the Highway Loss Data Institute found that bans on texting behind the wheel aren't decreasing collisions. As more data becomes available, the need for hands-free solutions will likely increase.

Microsoft sues Motorola over patents Cecilia Kang

Saturday, October 2, 2010

Microsoft said Friday that it has filed a lawsuit against Motorola for allegedly infringing on nine patents to produce Motorola's Android smartphones.

The software giant said in a news release that the patents are related "to a range of functionality embodied in Motorola's Android software smartphone devices" that helps to synchronize e-mail, calendars and contacts; schedule meetings; and show signal strength and battery power levels.
Motorola said in a statement that it hadn't received the lawsuit but added: "Motorola has a leading intellectual property portfolio, one of the strongest in the industry. The company will vigorously defend itself."
The lawsuit underscores the intense competition among software manufacturers and device makers in the rapidly growing smartphone market. More people are browsing the Web via smartphones than regular feature phones, according to a survey released Friday by ComScore. Microsoft has struggled as Google's Android software, RIM's BlackBerry and Apple's iPhone operating systems lead the market.

Microsoft's complaint was filed with the International Trade Commission and the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Washington state. "We have a responsibility to our customers, partners, and shareholders to safeguard the billions of dollars we invest each year in bringing innovative software products and services to market. Motorola needs to stop its infringement of our patented inventions in its Android smartphones," Microsoft said in a release.

Microsoft's move follows similar legal offensives over alleged smartphone patent infringements. This week, Apple sued Nokia in Britain, extending a back-and-forth legal battle between the companies on smartphone software. In March, Apple sued Taiwan-based HTC, the manufacturer of such Android phones as the HTC Hero and Google's Nexus One (which has been taken off the market), alleging that it had infringed on 20 Apple patents related to the iPhone's user interface, underlying architecture and hardware.

Friday, October 1, 2010

Samsung Galaxy Tab Launching November 1 in the UK

Samsung announced Friday that the Galaxy Tab will be available in the U.K. starting November 1, but pricing on the device is still under wraps.

The tablet will be sold at retailers like Carphone Warehouse, Dixons Store Group, and T-Mobile stores, Samsung said in a statement.

Samsung said the Galaxy Tab will "be available on a range of attractive price packages" that will be "as widely accessible as possible to all consumers," but declined to elaborate.

The Galaxy Tab made its debut last month. The 7-inch tablet PC is powered by Google's Android 2.2 Froyo operating system. It has a 1-Ghz Samsung Hummingbird processor, and the LCD screen is 1024-by-600 resolution. There's a 3-megapixel camera on the back and a 1.3-megapixel camera on the front, specifically for making video calls. The tablet has either 16 or 32 G-bytes of internal memory, with a MicroSD card slot supporting up to 32GB more. The tablet weighs 13 ounces, and according to Samsung, the 4000 mAh battery will last for seven hours of video playback.

Samsung said two weeks ago that the Galaxy Tab will be coming to all four national wireless carriers in the U.S., but in terms of a release date, said only that it will be available here "in the coming months."

The price is the most important piece of the puzzle. PCMag mobile analyst Sascha Segan wrote recently that the Samsung Galaxy Tab might be a great seller at $299 plus data for $20 per month, with no contract. But it's safe to say that it wouldn't do so well at $599 plus $60 per month for data, he said.

For more details, see PCMag's full hands-on with the Galaxy Tab.

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Analyst: Android Could Help Google Become ‘Virtual Telco’

By Ed Sutherland (7:47 am, Oct. 01, 2010)

At first glance, offering an open-source mobile operating system like Android, wouldn’t be a major profit center for Google. However, one analyst Friday offered multiple ways Android could even further enrich the Mountain View, Calif. firm’s coffers, including become its own ‘virtual telco’ for smartphone owners.

Google gains $500 million per year because Android offers hardware makers and carriers an attractive alternative to payments to Apple for the iPhone, according to Goldman Sachs analyst James Mitchell. In addition, although Apple leads the mobile apps market and is increasing its share of the mobile advertising pie, Google collects 30 percent of apps sold through its Android market and 40 percent from in-app advertising via AdMob.

Perhaps most intriguing, however, was the potential for Android to turn Google Voice combined with Google’s stake in Clearwire into what Mitchell calls a “virtual telco.”

“Google could use Android to evolve into a virtual telco, providing a single contact number and populating its Internet-based calling services,” the analyst told investors.

There is a downside for Google, however. The analyst foresees slow growth of search in Europe and Apple’s continued domination of the mobile Internet