The headline for this post leaves out a salient point in this discussion, and it also hits at another that affects all of us who love our mobile gadgets. The point left out is that what John Herlihy of Google is referring to is that most consumers will be using mobile gadgets to consume information and entertainment.
The translation for that brings up the second point. Herlihy is a Google VP for Global Ad Operations. Obviously is focus is on placing ads on all that content he sees you and I consuming. Of course he’s hoping that will be the case. That’s his job.
His statements go further and he makes some interesting claims. He says that in Japan today most research is done on mobile devices not desktop PCs. As big of a mobile geek as I am, I don’t see this trend accelerating quite that fast, at least here in the US. Technology is advancing at a rapid rate, so rapid that it is almost impossible to keep up. That’s one of the strengths in the industry’s growth and also one of its weaknesses.
The strength is simple to see, even in tough economic times we seem to have an insatiable hunger for these devices we can carry in our hands. But for desktops to really become irrelevant, consumers (and to an extent businesses as well) will need to see something really take hold with some sense of lasting significance before we’ll see desktops start disappearing from dens and cubicles. Call me silly, but I think the breathtaking pace of change at the moment is too quick for things to really permeate with any lasting affect.
Now, maybe 7 years is another story. What do you think?
Via SiliconRepublic
Section: Communications, Cellphones, Cellular Providers, Smartphones, Mobile, Gadgets / Other, Transportation, Web, Downloads
It must be a great feeling when you can sit back and watch something rake in $13,000 big ones a month. For Eddie Kim, he is already experiencing that ever since popularity of his Car Locator Android app increased tremendously in daily sales. However, it wasn’t always netting thousands of dollars a month, there were some days when he would be lucky to make just $80 a day!
Eddie Kim, creator of Car Locator, posted on his blog about the popularity and profits he has accrued since the app hit the Android Market. He offers some statistics on the app such as 70,000 free downloads, 6,590 paid downloads, and it once reached #4 top paid app in the travel category. Through the app’s lifetime, the price has increased from $1.99 to $3.99, but that does not seem to deter most Android users from downloading the app. Despite the positive numbers, it began only generating $80-$100 in revenue a day, until it became featured in the Market where it began reaching $400 daily, with a record of $772 on Valentine’s day alone! Kim suspects downloads increase enormously on weekends and holidays, cited by the nearly doubling in profit on Valentine’s Day.
Even though his app has been displayed on the featured apps in the Market, Kim claims it alternates top apps daily, and his app has been found through searches as opposed to featured apps. Unfortunately, it is hard to stop piracy on the Android platform, as Kim finds out through Twitter that it is quite possible to get the .apk file online. However, that does not take away from his achievement: $13,000 a month with room for improvement.
For ambitious Android developers, he offers this piece of advice:
If Android development is something you’ve been mulling over, I encourage you to make the leap. Though my experiences are clearly not typical, I definitely think Android is the ideal platform to be in for an individual developer.
Read [EddieKim]
Full Story » | Written by Natesh Sood for Gadgetell. | Comment on this Article »
Section: Audio, Portable Audio, Video, Portable Video, Communications, Smartphones, Mobile, Gadgets / Other, Features, Originals, Columns, Who's On Crack
Welcome back to this week’s Who’s on Crack, the Interwebs only column brave enough to suggest illegal narcotics fuel many of the moves in the tech world. It’s either that or Gadgetell is nuts for giving me a platform to spout off about stuff that bugs me or is just outright dumb. How dumb? Well take a week at this weeks nominees:
Weeks ago, Comcast decided they needed to shake things up and get some of that new-fangled branding everyone’s been talking about. The solution? They’ve introduced a new brand for their high-tech offering: Xfinity. Flippin’ genius!
Hot right? To me, someone in Comcastland has been watching way too much of The Office TV show as they’ve subconsciously swiped the name of Dunder Mifflin’s website initiative called Infinity. I say subconsciously because it would take a tweaked stoner to think that was a good idea. On the show, the website led to the site being overrun by perverts in the forums and eventually to the incarnation of the employee responsible for it. I can’t be the only one watching way too much of The Office right?
It’s too close not to be a coincidence, right? Will Comcast find jailtime too? $5 it won’t be on fraud, it will be charges the DEA will be interested in. I mean, if you are going to copy something, make sure you’ve got perverts and jail time as your milestones so you know when you find success.
On the surface, the idea is fantastic: forget dropping thousands of dollars on books only to get $.25 on the dollar for them when June rolls around. Instead, buy a $10 (or $15) ebook for an e-reader like the Kindle and carry all your books in your purse, or murse as the case may be.
The response from two trial horses Princeton and University of Washington who tried out the Kindle DX isn’t as you’d expect or hope. In fact, students said, “yo, the Kindle is whack,” or something like that. As reported by our Sue Walsh, “students reported that it didn’t quite make the cut due to complaints about it’s navigation, folder, and note taking systems.”
This week Walmart, famous for low prices, bought video on-demand service provider Vudu. On-demand movies are big business and it looks as though Walmart will be going after Netflix and Blockbuster. What the heck is Walmart smoking? Walmart gets two strikes for this one
Strike one:
Walmart has “low prices” plastered all over their images. I didn’t buy a Vudu box because it was too expensive. The Roku box was much cheaper and then plays Netflix on-demand movies for free. Contrast that with Vudu is after you swallow the $149 to buy the box, then you pay to watch each movie. No freebies. So big expense upfront and then pay again when you watch something. Um, buying Redbox might have been smarter if you plan on sticking to that whole low price thingy.
Strike two:
Where you find drugs, often you find sex. The two seem to go together like PB&J. Our Sue Walsh (she picked some good topics this past week) tells us, “In what really isn’t a surprising move given their much publicized store policies, just days after buying streaming video provider Vudu, Walmart has announced it is shutting down it’s After Dark service, which discreetly provided hundreds of adult films to its subscribers. The service was the only major service with such a large and up to date library.”
So Walmart buys an expensive service that has a following thanks to the loads of porn available and then kills the porn. In other news, Walmart has bid on faltering auto brand Hummer while working a deal to include censored Playboy magazines to buyers. Cavity search, aisle 5.
Admitted recovering iPhone addict and recent Android purchaser Robert spent some time with the Palm Pre Plus and the Palm Pixi Plus for the past few weeks and wrote up a piece “2000 apps are enough” or something like that. I didn’t take the time to read it.
OK, I did read it, mostly because I disagree. When Apple says, “we’ve got 150,000 awesome-tastic apps” and when the funny little Android does a robot dance and chimes, “I am rocking 20,000 apps” and Palm’s creepy girl says, “I’ve only got 2,000” I feel bad for her (and creeped out, but mostly bad). As consumers we compare: we don’t stop to check quality vs quantity. But it isn’t just big numbers.
Apps of the moment come in iPhone flavors and maybe Android if there is time. Case in point: I am a big America’s Cup fan and downloaded the Alinghi app to keep tabs on the defender; no Android app. Or I have Comcast phone and TV service and love their iPhone app; but again no Android app. These are two apps I adore with no options on other mobile OS.
Dealbreaker? Maybe not but it’s something to consider. These devices are largely entertaining and a lot of that entertainment value (of the iPhone anyway) is sitting there and sifting through apps to find some gems. The best app ever is just “20 more” away. Now that Verizon has both webOS devices, hopefully that will drive webOS into firming ground but until then, size matters.
Unfortunately, Robert didn’t make enough of a declarative statement about the lack of apps being OK for me to quote it and ridicule him for it here. I will say, Robert owns a Zune; and leave it at that.
Full Story » | Written by JG Mason for Gadgetell. | Comment on this Article »
Section: Communications, Smartphones, Mobile, Gadgets / Other, ebooks
Good news for BlackBerry users that want to read while on-the-go—your Kindle app is now ready and available for download. And getting right down to the availability and compatibility. The Kindle app for the BlackBerry is listed as being able to work on the Bold 9000, Bold 9700, Curve 8520, Curve 8900, Storm 9530, Storm 9550 and the Tour 9630. Additionally, at this time it is available only for US customers.
Moving on, the app is available for free, you can either visit www.amazon.com/kindlebb from your BlackBerry or visit Amazon (link below) and have a link delivered by email.
Feature wise the BlackBerry app is what we have seen before on other devices and will allow you to sample, read and purchase—all whether you have a Kindle or not. Of course, these mobile apps work very nicely in conjunction with a regular Kindle due to Whispersync which allows you to sync your bookmarks, annotations and last read page between devices.
Read [Amazon] Via [Business Wire]
Full Story » | Written by Robert Nelson for Gadgetell. | Comment on this Article »
On a planet with around 6.8 billion people, we're likely to see 5 billion cell phone subscriptions this year.
Reaching 4.6 billion at the end of 2009, the number of cell phone subscriptions across the globe will hit 5 billion sometime in 2010, according to the International Telecommunication Union (ITU). The explosion in cell phone use has been driven not only by developed countries, but by developing nations hungry for services like mobile banking and health care.
"Even during an economic crisis, we have seen no drop in the demand for communications services," said ITU Secretary-General Dr. Hamadoun Toure at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona this week, "and I am confident that we will continue to see a rapid uptake in mobile cellular services in particular in 2010, with many more people using their phones to access the Internet."
long with the surge in cell phones, demand for mobile access to the Internet has skyrocketed. The ITU expects the number of mobile broadband subscriptions to surpass 1 billion around the world this year, a leap from 600 million at the end of 2009. The organization predicts that within the next five years, more people will hop onto the Web from laptops and mobile gadgets than from desktop computers.
People in developing countries are increasingly using their cell phones for mobile banking, even those who have no bank accounts. But it's in the area of health care that cell phones have made a difference in developing regions, believes the ITU.
"Even the simplest, low-end mobile phone can do so much to improve health care in the developing world," said Toure. "Good examples include sending reminder messages to patients' phones when they have a medical appointment, or need a prenatal check-up. Or using SMS messages to deliver instructions on when and how to take complex medication such as anti-retrovirals or vaccines. It's such a simple thing to do, and yet it saves millions of dollars—and can help improve and even save the lives of millions of people."
This story originally appeared on CNET
Paris-based Alcatel-Lucent made an announcement at today’s Mobile World Congress cellphone conference in Barcelona, Spain, that could open the door for mobile application developers to build apps that can be instantly available on multiple wireless carriers, rather than having to build a separate app for each operator.
Moreover, Alcatel’s new service — it’s basically a single API that removes the need for separate APIs to tie an app to SMS, messaging and location services — will also be cheaper for app developers than the existing system. Usually, developers need to pay each wireless operator for SMS access, etc. Alcatel’s API-based approach will by design be cheaper.
“Alcatel is bringing in the cheap API services that have popped up for things like location, and bundling them up with carriers’ existing services, and thus lowering costs for developers that are using it,” VentureBeat editor Matt Marshall told me after being informed about Alcatel’s pending announcement on Monday. “So why are carriers agreeing to this? Well, Alcatel is saying the carriers will make money by having developers do more business with them (bulk), even if the the average fee goes down, by bringing them back into the fold.”
That seems to be the slogan of nearly every online business, product or service these days: “We’ll make it up on volume.” With investors convinced that the high-margin days of the dot-com and Web 2.0 booms are gone forever, lower prices are the one sure way to draw interest.
The new service is part of Alcatel’s Open API Service announced last year. In an unusually long press releaese Alcatel-Lucent showed to some reporters in advance, the company explained how it expects its initiative to be perceived by its potential customers, the startups and standalone coders who build applications for mobile gadgets:
“The research we’ve done with more than 1,000 developers shows that the bundled approach to aggregation could drive up an API’s value by 200-300 percent. It also shows that developers want to participate in API revenue sharing and have access to service provider analytics.”
Connected planet reporter Rick Karpinski summed up Alcatel’s offer to developers:
“[It's] an API aggregation and bundling model that packages up collections of APIs and Web services that developers can use to create a new application. One of the problems with the application approaches of OS-centric environments like the Apple iPhone or Google Android is that they route around telco APIs altogether. For instance, rather than using network location they rely on GPS; or rather than relying on telco user info, they tap into social media profiles, and on and on.”
By providing an easy, one-stop hookup to SMS, location and other services, as well as shrink-wrapped analytical data on how their apps are being used, Alcatel expects to sign up developers by the hundreds, if not thousands.
But Alcatel is competing with every pre-existing app store on the planet. Will app developers forego the iTunes App Store, Android Market, Ovi and other app stores in order to hook up directly to wireless operators? Some will, of course. But it seems likely that Alcatel will end up with a certain subset of developers who have serious problems with Apple, Android and Nokia, rather than winning over the majority of those stores’ app makers.
Alacatel, a 19th-century French firm that merged with America’s Lucent in 2006 to form a global telecom giant, has nearly 80,000 employees world wide.
Motorola is about to become two-faced, but not in a bad way. Targeting the first quarter of 2011, Motorola says it will split into two independent, publicly traded companies. One will continue to focus on mobile gadgets and home devices, while the other will take aim at the enterprise mobile market and network business.
"The combination of Mobile Devices and our Home business brings together two highly complementary and innovative organizations," said Dr. Sanjay Jha, co-chief executive officer of Motorola. "Together we will be best positioned to lead in the convergence of mobility, media, and the Internet. Our expanding portfolio of smartphones and end-to-end video content delivery capabilities will enable us to provide advanced mobile media solutions and multi-screen experiences for our customers."
The move has the full support of Motorola's board of directors, who sees this as beneficial to long-term shareholder value. Both ventures will use the Motorola brand, with the Mobile Devices and Home business unit owning the rights and licensing the brand royalty free to the Enterprise Mobility Solutions and Networks business.
Eco Factor: Nanogenerators to be used for power generating clothing.
Researchers at the University of California, Berkeley, have created energy-harvesting nanofibers that could be woven into textiles and the clothes we wear to generate renewable electricity for our portable mobile gadgets. These nano-sized generators have piezoelectric properties that allow them to convert normal body movements into electricity.
The technology could eventually lead to wearable “Smart Clothes” that power hand-held devices using nothing more than body movements. Since these fibers are to be made from organic polyvinylidene fluoride, they are flexible and easy to manufacture.
Having diameters as small as 500 nanometers, these fibers can generate electric outputs ranging from 5 to 30 mV. Furthermore, the researchers report no noticeable degradation after stretching and releasing the nanofibers for 100 minutes at a frequency of 0.5 hertz. During tests, these researchers demonstrated energy conversion efficiencies as high as 21.8 percent, with an average rating of around 12.5 percent.
Via: Science Daily
