Mobility Digest » Uncategorized

Storage about to get smaller, and IBM answers the eternal question.

Anthony Rock — Fri, 27 Jan 2012 00:51:53 +0000

Exactly how small can ferromagnetic storage be?

According to IBM, one bit of memory storage in current mediums requires the work of 1 million atoms. IBM has just upped the ante and created a storage mechanism capable of recording a single bit of data on 12.

No, that’s not 12 million, just 12. 12 single atoms can now store a single bit of data.

In case you’re keeping track, that means your 300 gigabyte hard drive, if made from this new material, could theoretically turn it into a 30 terabyte drive and occupy the same space. At 150 times the capacity of solid-state drives, our meager 16-32 gigabyte phones could skyrocket above a terabyte in the same form factor.

This has huge implications on our mobile devices and tech world (and our rapidly dire storage situation) as a whole. Although a workable solution probably won’t be as small (The atoms need to be at a lower temperature), the fact that IBM has made such progress on controlling things at a subatomic level for our technological benefit makes me a happy camper. This sort of technology could manifest itself into processors, and put a rest to Moore’s Law for good.

Improvements Come To Windows Phone Google Calendar and Email Experience

Murani Lewis — Thu, 26 Jan 2012 23:41:03 +0000

Google has announced a couple of important and welcomed changes to their calendar and email experience for Windows Phone 7.5 users. The two changes are server-side search and multiple calendar support. Depending on the user one is more important than the other.

Server side search-Allows users to search for emails on their gmail account that is older than the 30 days that emails remain on their Windows Phone. This should result in a huge increase in productivity and lessen the headache of inconveniently having to wait to getting home to look up an older email.

Multiple Google Calendar Support-Now you can have access and view appointments and schedules from multiple Google calendars simultaneously. Great for those that have built their life around this particular Google service.

Source: Paul Thurrott’s Supersite for Windows

MS releases Dance Central app where you make dance videos and compete

David K — Sat, 14 Jan 2012 19:32:25 +0000

Microsoft just released Dance Central 2′s Dance*Cam for Windows Phones and it’s free and sounds awesome. Here are the details:

Think you’re a dance superstar?

Get ready, because Dance Central 2’s Dance*Cam puts you in the center of your very own music video!

Step up to the dance floor with some of the biggest dance hits of all time! Record yourself or a friend dancing along with our Dance*Cam and we’ll remix, light up, and transform your performance into a personalized dance video.

Then, put your dance-cred on the line by challenging your friends to an old-school Dance Battle! Take to the mean streets of Facebook to prove that only you can truly own the dance floor.

FEATURING:
- La Roux – ‘Bulletproof’
- Montell Jordan – ‘This Is How We Do It’
- Electric Valentine – ‘Body To Body’
- Sean Kingston – ‘Fire Burning’
- Armanni Reign – ‘Reach’
- Far East Movement – ‘Like A G6’
- Enrique Iglesias – ‘I Like It’

After you’ve proven yourself to your friends, see if you can handle yourself in the game. With a killer soundtrack, the best routines, and all-new multiplayer features, Dance Central 2 is sure to get your party started. Visit Dance Central 2 at XBox.Com and check Windows Phone 7 Companion App Dance*Cam at Windows Phone 7 Market Place for free here.

Line Runner available for Windows Phones

David K — Sat, 14 Jan 2012 19:22:17 +0000

The iPhone hit is here!

The #1 iPhone hit now on your Windows Phone!

Quickly jump over and roll through obstacles, as fast and as far as you can. Try to beat other players highscore on up to 10 different tracks.

FEATURES:
- Very fast paced gameplay
- Really challenging
- Increasing difficulty from easy to bone breaking
- Openfeint leaderboard
- Challenge your friends and all other players worldwide
- Different difficulties
you can check it out here for $1 but there is a trial: http://www.windowsphone.com/en-US/apps/87249626-9ee1-4485-bb3b-b5957faf35a7

Android releasing “Design Bible” for ICS

Anthony Rock — Sat, 14 Jan 2012 02:42:23 +0000

While Android reigns supreme as the #1 mobile OS in the world, holding the majority of the marketshare beneath its green, stubby limbs… there is much to be said about the third party applications. With the most recent revelation of “Roboto”, the default Android font that Google is supporting, it seems that taking a few pages from their competitors books about consistent design couldn’t hurt the platform. It may even result in an improved experience and better curb appeal, because nothing says amateur like an app killer using Comic Sans.

To remedy this, Google is going to be building a site where Mountain View will be offering suggestions and guidelines to its app developers on how to create a more cohesive and unified experience for end users. Hopefully OEM’s take a page out of this book and scale back their bloatware as well, but don’t hold your breath for that.

Android is often criticized for being uneven, visually and design-wise. This could prove a happy medium between Apple’s iron-fisted lock on approving apps and their current laissez-faire methodology, using them as guidelines and not requirements.

12/12/2012 – A post from the future

Anthony Rock — Sun, 01 Jan 2012 18:55:28 +0000

Through means I shall not disclose, I arrived in the future a few days ago. I’m currently still in the future, but my arms are reached through a wormhole, typing on my laptop that is currently located in the present… because sending a post over the internet to 12 months in the past is just silly. And besides, I want the most accurate prediction post on the Internet.

It’s a different world. Through passion and persistence, Microsoft has managed to wrangle 10% of the mobile market with use of their exclusive Apocalyspe 365 App, an Office extension (and free for WP8 users!) that allows you a few minutes warning before meteors, gives you plagued areas, and even shows you the most fertile areas for good ol’ fashioned rape and pillage. How are we still using cell phones during the end of the world? Well, even if we live in Mad Max, no cell phone reception is still something nobody wants (Due to being taken over by the Mo’Lok Clan, every time someones call is dropped an AT&T employee is publicly slaughtered and burned. Call reception has improved significantly!)

Android quad-core phones were released, but the batteries were too weak to keep them up. Due to lithium batteries costing four quarts of water or your daughters endless dedication, clever Android users have fashioned a miniature internal-combustion engine to power their devices. That’s right, Androids are gas powered! They expect the supply of gas to last for another few years until the second coming of the Dark Ages, so I guess the guys from Mountain View did get the last laugh.

Apple just released the iVest, a kelvar-stubbed, fashionably minimalistic ballistic bit of chest armor. It’s been a big seller, an instant hit, but chief complaints have come from people who claim you’re just paying for a name. There are no customizations, but a ton of accessories available. The impact plates are non-removable, but if you are shot you can take the vest to any Apple store and get it replaced under warranty. The initial plates came with glass covering, but were recalled for obvious reasons.

Hewlett Packard has dropped out of the human trafficking market, letting their operations go open source.

The fanboy wars have gone from the messageboards to the Badlands of the Great Plains. Due to the chaotic and often clumsy, smelly nature of these battles, people originally chose to put an icon of their favorite hardware on flags to differentiate. Since all televisions, cell phones, tablets, microwaves, refrigerators, and shoes since February 2012 have been made to look like black rectangles, confusion reigned during the initial phase. The resulting carnage was called The Big LOL (Sponsored by Bawls), and it was estimated the collective smell of 5,422 athletes-foot ridden feet have made the area uninhabitable for another three decades. Since then, people have changed their flags up to have company names. All of the cyan and pink Nokia Lumia 999 fanboys won’t shut up about how, if the other devices were as colorful as theirs this wouldn’t have happened, and have been selected by the masses for enforced extinction by Q2 2013 (If the world still exists by then!)

Okay, well, the joint-venture Bandwidth Enforcement Units (From all cell phone providers) are closing in on my location, so I need to break links and get running. Just remember what you’ve read here, and know that everyone elses prediction posts are completely…

There’s someone here. They’re coming in the back way. The Telcoms are going to get me, get them before it’s too late!

Oh, F-

Why everyone’s wrong about Windows Phone 7

Anthony Rock — Wed, 28 Dec 2011 22:44:09 +0000

Blog heavyweight Robert Scoble has recently blogged in response to Charlie Kindel’s recent interview comments, stating the reason WP7 hasn’t taken off is purely because of apps and app developers, and the market for WP7 is closed and the platform has no chance to survive. Kindel, if you haven’t already read, believes that Microsoft’s use of quality control and wrangling in the OEM’s and carriers is the reason the OS hasn’t taken off.

First, some reality needs to settle in. Despite the obvious reasons why not, quite a few Android phones are considered “smartphones” for reasons that are beyond most people. I’m not talking about your Optimus V, your Atrix 2, or any of the other high-end premium phones. I’m referring to the horrid Optimus U (“Micro”) and other phones that are hobbled, barely functional feature phones with a touchscreen. These are as much smartphones as a jacked-up Honda Civic is a performance car because it can do the 0-60 kinda-sorta fast. Stick an iPhone, any Galaxy S or S II phone, or any Windows Phone next to one of those budget LG Android phones or the junk they sell you at Boost Mobile and the difference is as clear as day.

Despite that rant, “smartphone” penetration in the USA is either 35% or 44%, depending on who you ask and what, exactly, qualifies as a smartphone. So, we’ll play the numbers and hazard a guess of 40%, realistically, but it could go either way. This leaves right around 60% of the US market still in the market for a smartphone, and if you factor in all the cheap smartphones, old smartphones, and upgrade-every-year smartphones, the number just gets higher for how many people are going to buy a new smartphone in the next few years. This market is far from closed, and when you go outside this country, the numbers for smartphone penetration just get lower and lower. You’ll notice the bottom of the list includes the biggest potential markets in the world, India and China, countries that mobile giant Nokia has a decent but tenuous grasp on. Can they retain their hold? Possibly.

In short: The market is wide the hell open for everything. This is anything but a two-horse race, and it’s anything but finished.

So what does Microsoft have to offer? Well, besides stubbornness and a war chest most companies would dream of having, they have Windows 8 and the XBox. Does this effect WP7? That depends on how three questions are answered:

1. Are people willing to accept Metro as the “default” interface?

2. Will Windows 8 tablets take off as they are expected to?

3. Are the benefits of the Windows ecosystem worth investing into?

These are questions we cannot answer yet, or even pretend to, because there is simply no way of knowing. The Metro UI right now is weird and alien and icky, but if Windows 8 takes off and people warm up to it (Live tiles are sweet, I have to say), then Metro becomes the “default” and other systems that don’t look like it are stored in the “old” or “other” categories, a bleak place that WM6.5 and WP7 are currently inhabiting. Windows 8 tablets are supposed to be the next generation in tablet computing, and they are currently bragging about laptop functionality in a slate form factor. If this comes to fruition, and the tablets are hot sellers, then we could see Windows Phone take off along with it.

There are a lot of “ifs” floating around WP7. Marketshare numbers from Microsoft are nonexistant, which gives the distinct impression that they are not very good at all. Nokia is still bleeding marketshare, but it has the name and the distribution channels that could elevate WP7 to a higher level if Tango can live up to its promise of WinPho functionality aimed at the cheap seats. If the Marketplace can continue to grow and thrive as it has (And snatch up those lingering apps people are bleating over), then the obligatory negative of limited apps that is put in every WP7 review will become a non-factor. If Apollo can up the game with higher-end phones, then that becomes a non-factor. If Microsoft can keep its updating system as smooth and silky as they have if they manage to wrangle up that penetration they want (In other words, instead of a few million they’d be updating tens of millions), then that will keep people happy.

In every “WP7 am doomed” article I read, there is an obligatory mention of the failures of Bing, Kin, and Zune. Bing is easy: It’s still growing. It’s nipping away at Google’s marketshare by the month, albeit slowly.

The Zune did not fail. The hardware was discontinued, but the software and ecosystem contribution is all Microsoft cares about. Look, it’s simple: The portable MP3 player market is not an essential market to own (Even iPod sales have been declining steadily over the last few years), but the still-emerging smartphone market is. Why waste time, effort, and energy on a product nobody wants in a market that will not decide the future of your company? Microsoft might as well try to infiltrate the digital camera market. Much like a hermit crab, Zune lives on in a different shell and from what I understand it’s second only to iTunes as an online entertainment marketplace.

The Kin. The Kin was representative of Microsoft trying to latch on to current trends. As of April 2010, the dumbphone market eclipsed the smartphone market (And our friends at Gartner predicted that smartphone sales would slow during 2010) and MS, knowing nothing about the market, launched the Kin: A Facebook powered feature phone released in the shadow of the iPhone without the power, the name, or the backing. It was a stupid, stupid move and with the way WP7 looks it appears Microsoft learned their lesson.

Why isn’t WP7 latching on? It’s been a year. It’s following growth trends that Apple and Google set with their own releases, both in market share and app counts. It’s got itself quite a bit of good press, a solid foundation, and a rabidly loyal fanbase. Despite the doom and gloom that others predict, the thing has a fighting chance.

If you were wondering where the part was where I predict WP7′s marketshare or even tell you that is definitely going to succeed, then just go smack yourself. This is all speculation, and with the way the tech world works I’m not dumb enough to try and predict it. I can only give a guess on what would need to happen for WP7 to succeed, and it’s equally likely that it could succeed without any of the above factors coming into play or be dead by next year.

DoCoMo & Co. to take on Qualcomm

Anthony Rock — Tue, 27 Dec 2011 18:31:17 +0000

For as long as most of us can remember just about every cell phone we’ve owned has had that familiar Qualcomm sticker on the back. Well, it looks like cell company DoCoMo and a consortium consisting of Fujitsu, Fujitsu Semiconductor, Samsung, NEC, and Panasonic Mobile are looking to challenge slash dethrone the current mobile phone chip making behemoth. According to the press release found on their site, they are looking to create:

“…feature-rich, small-size, low-power-consumption semiconductor products equipped with modem functionality.”

Although it’s a completely unexciting, unsexy, Rosie O’Donnell-esque area of the full-fledged battle for the mobile market, it’s also one that’s long overdue for some serious competition. Bad reception, dropped calls, battery life, and call quality are the last things on our minds while we’re admiring our beautifully crafted rectangles. Qualcomm has gone unchallenged for as long as I can remember, and since every other aspect of mobiles and smartphones has heated up with serious competition, maybe we’ll benefit from this consortium as well.

Logitech Lost Big on Google TV–Throws Google TV Under The Bus

David K — Fri, 11 Nov 2011 05:20:07 +0000

Call me crazy but I thought Google TV was going to have legs. I mean, not out of the gate but I thought that by now they would have refined the software to the point where it was something crave-worthy. And nope.

Logitech was an early manufacturer with their Logitech Revue and as we heard, they had more returns than sales early on. It cost them over $100m as they entirely failed to sell and there’s no Revue 2 in the works. Their CEO called Google TV a beta product and ultimately a mistake. The only redeeming words about Google TV are that it has a chance, in a few generations, to be a viable product.

Well if you liked the product at all you can probably get them for pretty cheap this holiday season as they sell through what they have in stock and after that Google will have to up their game before the top tier manufacturers take another shot at the beta world that is Google.

via The Verge

Windows Phone Inner Circle

Jeremy Bartz — Thu, 10 Nov 2011 06:25:16 +0000

Well tonight I went to the Windows Phone Inner Circle event in San Diego.

I can say this what Microsoft spends on advertising they can throw 5 of these events per ad. Tonight I learned more about the WP7 platform than what I could thru sites. Microsoft was kind enough to put the behind the scenes people on display for us to talk to. It was a great time to learn more about WP7 and other tricks.

After talking with the peeps there some things I would like fixed for WP7, on the arrive to not pause the music when you open the keyboard or shut it. Another major feature I would like is the ability to clone your kids phone on yours. The ability to know what they are doing in real time would be a great app that I would pay for but at the same time to ensure to make sure no predators gain access.

All in all it was a great night for WP* and there is many ambassadors in the making to help promote this platform.

wP7 is here to stay and I wrote this from a WP7 device half in the bag so all is good.