Apple iPad’s Oscar evening debut on millions of TVs may have been the talk of the town Monday morning but not for long. Rival PC maker HP has launched a sneak attack on the iPad.
HP released a video introducing its tablet called the Slate that will run Windows 7 operating system and support Flash–a jab at the iPad, which will not display Flash-based sites or videos.
“With this slate product, you’re getting a full Web browsing experience in the palm of your hand,” posted Phil McKinney, vice president and chief technology officer for HP’s personal system group on the company’s blog. “No watered-down Internet, no sacrifices.”
HP did not reveal pricing or availability for the device though it has indicated it will be available this year.
Since the launch of Apple iPad in January, PC makers are rushing to offer tablet devices that can position themselves between the 4-inch touchscreen smartphone and the 12-inch netbook or laptop. They say tablets could be ideal for surfing the web while sitting on a couch or could double up as a e-reader and personalized video viewing device, in addition to checking e-mail and web browsing.
Dell has said that it will launch a family of tablets, the first of which will be a PlayStation Portable sized device with a 5-inch screen codenamed Dell Mini 5. Dell hasn’t disclosed pricing or availability for its product yet. Apple’s iPad starting at $500 will on sale from April 3.
Though HP has released the specs yet, the company’s video indicates a device that’s closer to the 9.7-inch display iPad in its design and size.
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HP’s slate seems to offer a full capacitive touchscreen and the familiar pinch-to-zoom gesture. Overall, the design resemblance to the iPad is startling so the Slate could clearly be a tablet for those who want an iPad like device on the Windows ecosystem.
The Slate has icons that lets users quickly access the browser, apps such as Pandora and the music player. And like the iPad, it has an e-reading feature that will offer access to magazines and newspapers.
HP’s video also shows the Slate running a video playback from MTV, a web-based game designed in Flash, photo-editing and a digital version of the New York Times.
As for pricing, McKinney says HP could have released a slate two years ago but it would have cost around $1500. “Since then, chip and screen advancements have given us the ability to create a product that can hit a size, weight, battery life and price point that will make this product a mainstream offering,” he wrote.
Photo/Video: HP Slate (HP)
Two weeks ago, we reported that Internet search giant Google had acquired third-party iPhone mail application reMail. At the time, Google rehired reMail CEO and programmer Gabor Cselle to work as a product manager on the Gmail team. reMail was then pulled from the App Store and Google decided to discontinue the app, only offering support through the end of March. However, Google recently contacted Ars to say that it had decided to make the code available as open source on Google Code under the Apache 2.0 License.
The Apache 2.0 License states that the code is free to use, alter, and redistribute as the user sees fit. Further, users can charge for any aspect of the software they choose, including the application itself or support. That means people can use portions of code to add functionality in their own applications or create totally new ones without having to release them under an open source license. Google usually favors the Apache license over alternatives and uses it for Android.
This may still mean the end of reMail, but it's good news for anyone looking to incorporate more advanced e-mail functionality into their own applications. As Cselle pointed out in his blog post, he has already dealt with many of the obstacles associated with developing an e-mail client, including communication with IMAP and parsing MIME messages. In other words, there's no need to reinvent the wheel if you don't have to.
If you're interested in poking around, the code can be found on Google Code, where there has already been a fair amount of action since the announcement on Friday.
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Toyota gave detailed evidence Monday that it says disproves claims that electronics may cause the unwanted acceleration that led to the recall of more than 8 million cars and trucks. The company was countering tests by a professor who said Toyota engines could rev without a driver pressing on the gas.
BackType Launches Labs, BackType Me, for Social News
- LouCypherFiled under: E-mail, Google, Mozilla, Freeware, Social Software, Browsers
There are a number of email plugins that look to give you contextual information about the person you're communicating with. The first one I tried (and arguably the best I've seen) is Xobni, an Outlook plugin.
There's now a similar plugin available for Gmail users called Rapportive. Rapportive replaces the ads you normally see in the right-hand sidebar with a profile of the person you're emailing with that is automatically generated by searching online services for your correspondent's email address. Rapportive is only available to users that are using either Firefox or Chrome as their browser, since Firefox and Chrome have a plugin architecture.
The information Rapportive provides is interesting, and it searches a surprising number of online services. But I can't help but think that they're putting themselves on shaky ground by choosing to replace the ads in Gmail; I doubt Google could easily block this behavior technologically, but if Rapportive gets too popular I don't doubt that Google's lawyers might be able to block it, permanently.
In the mean time, if you're looking for a clever way to get more information about the people you correspond with the side-effect of blocking ads in your Gmail, have a look at Rapportive.
[via ReadWriteWeb]
Rapportive replaces Gmail ads with useful social information originally appeared on Download Squad on Mon, 08 Mar 2010 16:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Filed under: E-mail, Google, Mozilla, Freeware, Social Software, Browsers
There are a number of email plugins that look to give you contextual information about the person you're communicating with. The first one I tried (and arguably the best I've seen) is Xobni, an Outlook plugin.
There's now a similar plugin available for Gmail users called Rapportive. Rapportive replaces the ads you normally see in the right-hand sidebar with a profile of the person you're emailing with that is automatically generated by searching online services for your correspondent's email address. Rapportive is only available to users that are using either Firefox or Chrome as their browser, since Firefox and Chrome have a plugin architecture.
The information Rapportive provides is interesting, and it searches a surprising number of online services. But I can't help but think that they're putting themselves on shaky ground by choosing to replace the ads in Gmail; I doubt Google could easily block this behavior technologically, but if Rapportive gets too popular I don't doubt that Google's lawyers might be able to block it, permanently.
In the mean time, if you're looking for a clever way to get more information about the people you correspond with the side-effect of blocking ads in your Gmail, have a look at Rapportive.
[via ReadWriteWeb]
Rapportive replaces Gmail ads with useful social information originally appeared on Download Squad on Mon, 08 Mar 2010 16:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments
Yahoo appears to be making a smart move by disbanding its dedicated mobile division as part of a larger reorganization that will integrate the mobile web into the core of most of its products.
“We are more tightly integrating our mobile business into the company’s DNA as we create the best possible user experiences for our consumers and partners regardless of device or access point,” said Cory Pforzheimer, Yahoo’s senior manager of corporate communications, in an e-mail. “As the adoption of Yahoo’s mobile services continues to grow globally, mobile continues to be a priority for the company.”
The move is pretty much directly from recommendations from CEO Carol Bartz, who, by most accounts, is a no-nonsense, foul-mouthed sh*t kicker. Yahoo’s been getting beat up for years but her moves to streamline the company seem like a good strategy. On the mobile side, she’s cleaned house at the top and seems to understand the importance of the mobile web for the future of the company. The mobile team had previously been in a silo and while it did produce some cool products, Yahoo needs to take a more holistic approach if it hopes to overcome the big, bad Google (NSDQ: GOOG).
It’s going to be tough to overcome the search giant because it has more resources than Google and it is dead serious about mobile with Android, Buzz for mobile, and other products. Google recently said the desktop would become irrelevant in three years due to the proliferation of the mobile web. The dominant search provider even recently got T-Mobile (NYSE: DT) to cast aside Yahoo as the main search engine on its devices. Yahoo’s not dead in the water though, as it has a deal to provide the default search for AT&T (NYSE: T), even on Android-powered devices like the Motorola Backflip. Good luck Yahoo, you’re going to need it.
[Via mocoNews]
Related News from IntoMobile:
MOUNTAIN VIEW, CA—Responding to recent public outcries over its handling of private data, search giant Google offered a wide-ranging and eerily well-informed apology to its millions of users Monday."We would like to extend our deepest apologies to each and every one of you," announced CEO Eric Schmidt, speaking from the company's Googleplex headquarters. "Clearly there have been some privacy concerns as of late, and judging by some of the search terms we've seen, along with the tens of thousands of personal e-mail exchanges and Google Chat conversations we've carefully examined, it looks as though it might be a while before we regain your trust."
Google expressed regret to some of its third-generation Irish-American users on Smithwood between Barlow and Lake.
Added Schmidt, "Whether you're Michael Paulson who lives at 3425 Longview Terrace and makes $86,400 a year, or Jessica Goldblatt from Lynnwood, WA, who already has well-established trust issues, we at Google would just like to say how very, truly sorry we are."
Gone are the days of hisses and beeps. Now, most of us log on to the Internet through silent, fast — and often pricey — broadband connections. But at a time when many families are trying to trim the monthly budget, there may be alternatives to those plans. Omar Gallaga of the Austin American-Statesman offers his insight.
Greeks are angry at the country's previous for getting the country into the debt crisis, and angry at other European states for pressuring Greece to meet its debt obligations. Greek public sector workers are seething at new austerity measures, which include steep pay cuts.
What AIG owes, and what it plans to pay back with two deals it says will bring in $51 billion.
Thousands of bands and countless music freaks will descend on Austin, Texas next week for the annual SXSW music conference, representing some of the best and brightest contemporary music makers from naive hopefuls to grizzled veterans. Even if you’re not making the trip, you can hear an astonishing selection of their music from the comfort of your own headphones without paying a cent.
Bands and labels normally get nervous when people start slinging around their music on bit torrent, but this time, they won’t likely complain. Starting in 2005, the organizers of SXSW themselves posted massive zip files containing the music of hundreds of bands scheduled to play the festival for people to trade on file sharing networks as a way of promoting their festival and the bands playing there.
When SXSW ceased that practice in 2008 in favor of posting songs individually, the crowd stepped in to continue the tradition of offering the whole shebang as a big torrent download. Greg Hewill built a torrent for that year and reposted the previous ones, after SXSW had taken them down. Ben Stolt took over in 2009 and also created this year’s unofficial SXSW Torrents site, which includes links to all five annual editions.
“For 2009, since no one had stepped up (and I was itching to start going through songs), a friend and I took over the task of finding and downloading all the songs to build the torrent,” Stolt told Wired.com. “I took a different approach and made it use open resources — Google to host the torrent file and large public trackers to handle the tracking — so that it was not hampered by my own limited bandwidth and resources… I [also] resurrected all the old torrents back to 2005 since they are no longer hosted anywhere else.”
Stolt believes SXSW organizers are fine with what he’s doing, and said they have yet to complain about this year’s or last year’s torrent.
“We’ve justified creating the torrent because SXSW used to do it themselves, there has been one for six years now and they’ve never said they don’t approve, and all the songs are right there on the official site — anyone can download them. That’s where we got them too. I’ve been pretty open about being behind these torrents; I could have stayed anonymous. If they had a problem with them, they could easily contact me.”
An SXSW organizer reached by phone, who refused to identify herself, said SXSW does not have explicit permission from the bands to distribute their music as a torrent, so it can’t officially condone the SXSW 2010 files making the rounds this week.
“We have an obligation to the bands,” said the SXSW organizer. “That’s definitely not something that we would want done, and we try to not do that by making them streaming-available on the site.” She added that her boss would get back to us with an official response about what action, if any, will be taken. As of today, Stolt said he has not heard from SXSW about the torrents, which are out in the wild at this point, so even if they ask him to close his site, they’ll be available on other torrent tracker sites.
Stolt posted the first batch of MP3s on February 15 and the second on Saturday (via Sandbox.fm). Even if you’re not attending the festival, the files cover a wide cross-section of the new music being made these days, providing a quick and easy way to catch up on the latest sounds — especially if, like so many of us, you’re overly dependent on old music you’ve already ripped or downloaded.
The annual ritual of sifting through this haystack of SXSW music demonstrates that bit torrent — like e-mail or a baseball bat — is not an illegal technology in and of itself, though any of the three can be used to infringe other people’s rights. In this case, these SXSW torrents are technically infringement, but given their history and the promotional effects not just on the festival but on the bands themselves, we’d be surprised if charges were filed.
Besides, most bands are probably overjoyed to be included. Stolt even felt it necessary to make clear on his site that if they hadn’t added their music to SXSW by March 6, there’s no way for them to add it now.
If you’re not familiar with bit torrent, it may seem confusing at first, but it’s actually quite simple. First, you’d install a bit torrent client such as the cross-platform Vuze, then click on a “.torrent” link on a torrent tracker website. In some cases, it’s as simple as that; in others, you may need to configure the software to play nice with your router; Vuze includes an auto-configuration utility.
Home of the (Unofficial) SXSW Torrents
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Verizon Wireless has disclosed some test data about the next-generation 4G LTE wireless network it’s working on building out. The bad news is that the average download speeds–five to twelve Mbps–fall far short of LTE’s theoretical 100Mbps capability. The good news is that even a dependable 5Mbps would be pretty sweet…
Greek Prime Minister George Papandreou says his country takes responsibility for its financial problems and is looking to improve governance. He says even during the election campaign that brought his party to power last year, he was unaware of the scale of Greece's debt and deficit.
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M-EDGE is offering notification by e-mail when this products is available and its price When the iPad finally makes its appearance you want to be sure to be ready with all the perfect accessories. One must have is protective jacket to keep your iPad safe...
If you drive a newer car, chances are it's controlled to a surprising extent by computers. Slate's technology columnist Farhad Manjoo says don't be afraid of the computers under the hood — they're far safer than most drivers.
Blockbuster CEO: time for…caution?
Ubisoft’s DRM servers fail spectacularly.
Chrome OS gets business edition?
Frameless, touch-keyboard Acer laptop?
Gizmodo tries HTC’s Legend handset.
Could iPad do handwriting recognition?
Techmeme launches media news site.
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Let me get this piece of business out of the way– as much as it pains me to admit it– Larry was right. (Wow that was hard.) Let me explain…
When Dragon Dictation was first released I was darn near giddy over how great the voice to text application was. Larry, on the other hand, was impressed but saw a major flaw with it. You see, with the Dragon application you need to dictate your text right into the application and then “send” the text to e-mail or the clipboard or the sms application. From there you need to format the e-mail with a recipient and a subject and then send it.
The multiple steps that were required to get from speaking your message to actually sending it was a bit of a challenge. For me, the speed and accuracy of the application make the multiple steps worthwhile. In addition, I have become pretty quick with the process. Larry, on the other hand, finds it remarkably annoying and, as a result, he doesn’t use the application nearly as much.
When Vlingo updated THEIR voice to text iPhone app last week it included an “in app paid upgraded” that resolves Larry’s issue. For seven dollars you can upgrade the app so that, as soon as you launch the app, you can start speaking. Moreover, you can add an email address, a subject and the message by voice and in one step. The process is simple now-
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The quantity of software in Google’s Android Market app store is growing rapidly. But compared to Apple’s App Store, the Android one is still short on stuff by rockstar developers like this one. Wonder what Google is doing to make it worth their while to build great stuff for its platform?
Only 41 percent of Americans know what their home Internet download speeds are. But it's good to know: Speeds typically register 10 percent to 20 percent below the limit consumers pay for. There are easy ways to tell if the connection is slow — and Web sites that can help analyze Internet connections.
Only 41 percent of Americans know what their home Internet download speeds are. But it's good to know: Speeds typically register 10 percent to 20 percent below the limit consumers pay for. There are easy ways to tell if the connection is slow — and Web sites that can help analyze Internet connections.
