Google might have to look for different names for its super phone, now since the US Trademark Office has rejected its application to trademark “Nexus One”.
The reason for the refusal is that the name conflicts with another Nexus mark, given to Integra Telecom back in Dec 2008. The mark owned by Integra refers to “the provision of telecommunication services and the transmission of voice and data”. But Google might argue that theirs is a product and not a service.
Opera has announced its Mini 5 browser for the Google OS. Opera for Android is a beta version that allows tabbed browsing, ’speed dial’ bookmarks, power scrolling with touchscreen as well as physical keyboard support. The browser provides upto 90% compressed webpages that allows faster browsing. The Opera link feature allows the user to sync bookmarks between the mobile phone and desktop computer. It also features an in-built password manager. The browser can be downloaded free from HERE. It is also available through the Android Market.
There were multiple rumors that a strong reason (or perhaps the only) for Google not integrating multi-touch (pinch to zoom that is) in the US release of Android phones (until now) was a lawsuit threat from Apple. Apple holds patents related to multitouch technology and this happens to be one of the 20 patents that Apple has shortlisted while suing HTC yesterday. Anyone going through the Apple suit against HTC gets it clear that Apple has targeted the Android OS more than HTC, however Google is not officially named in the lawsuit.
Google has not shied away from giving a statement in favour of HTC and this making it clear that they are up for a fight. “We are not a party to this lawsuit. However, we stand behind our Android operating system and the partners who have helped us to develop it,”- Google
The latest social networking service from Google might undergo some troubles as a class action lawsuit is filed in the San Jose federal court. The lawsuit accuses Google of breaking a number of laws relating to cyber communication, including the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act. The case has been filed on behalf of Eva Hibnick by law firms in San Francisco and Washington, D.C.. Eva is a Florida woman who has been chosen to represent the 31 million plus Gmail users during the case trial.
Google Buzz has been facing various issues regarding user privacy from (more…)
GPS on phone is now something very common and just one of the things the smartphone boom has brought to us. As much as these mobiles threat the digital camera market, portable GPS navigation devices have now become one of the endangered species. Till recently software and hardware for GPS navigation systems was a separate business, but over the last few months the dynamics of this market has changed. Google made its big announcement by throwing in its free navigation software on the android, engadget pointed out the sharp fall TomTom and Garmin took.
The google app wasn’t really a killer though it had its own charm and goodness. But the requirement of a continuous Internet connection (atleast in the current beta form) sinks it. Add to that only US support for now. We know that Google maps come together from as many as 6 teams coming together and they would certainly do better things in time to come, but what has really acted as a catalyst to the entire situation is the entry of Ovi maps to the scene. (more…)
The choice of integration of Google Buzz with Gmail was a good choice rather than creating a whole new application cause as per ComScore pegged Gmail at 176.5 million unique visitors in December 2009. Google Buzz has been the talk of town, Google learnt with Google Wave that creating something abstract and building and hyping it up and if the product does not live up to its expectations. But then they took the same learning, integrated Wave to Gmail, put status updates from Gtalk and Twitter, Gmail users can share Videos from Youtube and Photos form Flickr.
Google Buzz has been buzzing all across Buzz 9 million posts and comments, since last Tuesday. At the same time, tweets on “Google Buzz” within every 11 seconds, technology forums were all discussing with more than 1000 posts per day, since Tuesday (check here & here).
Post Facebook acquiring Friendfeed, Facebook got an easy integration to most of the social media platforms. So, the dominance that Google had over the internet was fading away. Plus, a recent report, stated that people would start using social networks as the primary source of communication on the internet than email by 2015. Internet users would evolve in their communication over the social networks. Google may not be seeking dominance, with Google Buzz will surely be getting enough prominence on the internet.
Google Buzz will surely be reduce on the time people spend on bookmarking sites like Digg, StumbleUpon. For a Social Media Marketing perspective, the (more…)
Early Termination Fee was on the growing list of complaints against Google’sSuperPhone. Now, Google has decided to trim it down.
If Nexus One customers canceled their contract within the first 120 days of purchase, they would have to pay a massive amount of $550 ($350 from Google as Equipment Recovery Fee, $200 from T-Mobile as Early Contract Termination Fee); ironically this is more than the actual price of the phone @$530. Also T-Mobile has reduced the termination fee from $200 to $50 for customers upgrading to Nexus One while it remains $200 for the new customers.
But, it was only a few weeks back when the FCC inquired with all four major cell phone service providers in the US, about the ETF and how it was being communicated to the customers. In particular, FCC pointed that the double ETF combo for Nexus One has left the customers surprised by its financial impact.
As a result of this, Google has modified its Terms Of Sales, which now mentions that Google’s own ETF for Nexus one cut down to $150 from the previous $350. (more…)
Google has announced that they would be launching an experimental broadband service across 50,000 to 500,000 people across. The broadband speed would be 1Gbps and would be available at competitive prices, according to Google. If this plan by Google goes through, its broadband network would be 100 times faster than an average US broadband. Compared to back here in India, it certainly sounds heaven!
Google is hoping to make the internet access faster and better for everyone. Google has three key objectives in their mind which it expects to achieve through this experiment. Firstly, Google expects to see some new bandwidth-intensive applications from developers. Secondly, finding new ways to develop fibre networks to help support development elsewhere . Google would share the results with the world. Thirdly, Google would operate an “open-access” network giving users choice of multiple service providers managing the network in an open, non-discriminatory and transparent way.
For now, Google is inviting information from communities and service providers to help them decide on their initial roll-out areas. The forms would be accepted till March 26th and are (more…)
Google has revealed that they are developing a voice translation application for smartphones. Real time voice-to-voice translation would be the first attempt of its kind for phones. Google already provides an automatic text translation system on computers known as the Google Translate which supports 52 different languages. Google also has a voice recognition system which enables phone users to search the web or use google maps through speech. Now, Google is working on combining the google translate and its speech recognition system to develop a new voice-to-voice translation for phones. The application would recognize speech in packages and translate them to another language after interpreting the meaning of the original speech.
Although Google’s text translation works quite accurately, the speech recognition system has its flaws and Google is now working on improving it. Googles’ Head of Translation Service, Franz Och said, (more…)
If there is anything that the poor sales of the Google Nexus One proves to me, its the control, the evil control rather – that the US carriers have over the mobile market. Long before Google unveiled the Nexus one, it was rumored that Cupertino is cooking plans to end the carrier raj in US. In their small way they did, however Nexus One was tied to T-Mobile. Selling solely over the Internet, NexusOne is surely rated high by the powerusers. I can see the craze amongst my friends on twitter here in India (with a few luck ones getting the device already).
Having watched his infamous 80 minute Google Wave demo twice over- we sure were looking forward to see the man in real life. And the man did not disappoint. Using his distinctive wit, he quipped, “I always start my lectures with my computer crashing”, when his computer refused to light up. The prospect of a BSOD on a Google guy’s Microsoft XP amused me thoroughly, but a prospect it remained and the lecture began.
He ran through the important features of Google Wave during the lecture for benefit of those who hadn’t seen his demo earlier. He talked about the Indian connection of Google Maps- how a substantial amount of the development work and innovation had happened at Google’s Bangalore office. He handled numerous technical and organizational snags with his characteristic sense of humour- what with his VPN not working (“so you’ll just have to imagine what it looked like”) and an IITian having to hold up a mike while he was typing after his collar mike died.
Just when you thought Nexus One is Google, it did a Microsoft! As Reuters points out, Nexus One’s speech-to-text recognition app turns your spoken swear words into strings of # symbols. (Remember the Zune HD doing the same on its twitter app?)
A Google spokeswoman clarified:
“We filter potentially offensive or inappropriate results because we want to avoid situations whereby we might mis-recognize a spoken query and return profanity when, in fact, the user said something completely innocent”
What this means is that, suppose you are on your way back home and want a fudge ice-cream to end your day, you speak the words “I want fudge ice-cream tonight” to be sent it as a text msg (via speech-recognition) to your mom. Now, if N1 did not block swear words, the text-to-speech app could interpret “fudge” as “fcuk” and in case you miss the conversion error and hurriedly send that msg to your mom, she’ll receive it as “I want fcuk ice-cream tonight”. ewww! yuck! That would be a damn embarrassing situation!
Google basically want to avoid such situations from happening. So, if ever it interprets a some speech into swear words, it blocks them and replaces them with # symbols, whether or not you have actually spoken those words. Yes, what they say is right. Users do not want to be caught up in embarrassing situations like these. But they also want their speech to be converted to text correctly, without any error. Basically, they demand a no-compromise speech to text recognition app. Nexus One haters got another reason to hate it, now even more.
And as it turns out to be, a look at comments on a similar post at Mashable tells me that this annoying thing is basically an Android problem, not specific to only Nexus One. Even Motorola Droid users are reporting the same problem.
So, until we get some better text-to-speech recognition algorithms, (generally speaking) Android users will have to bear this bull#### !!
When Google launched its turn-by-turn maps navigation for Android, it made the Droid a whole lot powerful with a superb GPS software. Having the Google search for GPS was amazing. And today Nokia has went free with navigation services via its own Ovi Maps. Coming to 10 S60 handsets to begin with the Ovi Maps navigation would also be brought to Maemo and S40 series models along with being preloaded on Nokia devices from March 2010.
This is certainly a bold move by Nokia and increases its competitiveness in the smartphone race. While the free Google navigation is available only in the US for now, the Nokia Ovi will give you worldwide access (detailed maps for more than 180 countries). Not just that, the Nokia Maps can be downloaded and loaded on to your handset for a Internet free navigation. This is unlike Google Navigation that requires an active data connection on your smartphone to do (more…)
This seems to be a break up of sorts between two gigantic giants of Silicon Valley. After the latest news of Apple wanting to revolutionize mobile advertising via its acquisition of Quattro, it’s now rumored via Apple’s sources that the company is in talks with Microsoft for a deal that could have Bing replacing Google as default search engine on iPhone OS 4.0. The OS 4.0 is rumored for launch on the Jan 27“latest creation” event.
Ever since the iPhone launched in Jan ‘07, we saw a close connection between Google and Apple. Firstly Google services like YouTube and Maps were integrated with the Apple iPhone / iPod Touch. Not just that, almost all of Goolgle’s Web Services were optimized specially for the iPhone, including AdSense, Docs, Reader, Google Earth & more.
Things started to get sour back in July last year, when Google announced Chrome OS. It was followed by Apple blocking Google Voice App on its App Store stating that it was “duplicating iPhone’s own functionalities”. Apple even added that Google might do something villainous with user data. Google acknowledged this to the FCC. Apple fumbled and said that it in fact had not actually rejected Google Voice, but was still “pondering” over what to make of the application. It proved that Apple was indeed lieing. (more…)
If you thought that the famous Nokia N900 unboxing video was the best that we could see, well Google just upped the bar for any one looking to do a geeky unboxing. Here is the Ninja unboxing video of the Google NexusOne.
With the Apple – Google rivalry heating up by each passing day and the resultant competition will definitely bring in new dimensions to the industry. The news doing the round these days is that Apple (read Steve Jobs) is trying to revolutionize the mobile ad world. After the Google – Admob conglomeration, Apple replied with the acquisition of Quattro. With the iPhone release in 2007 Apple pioneered the mobile internet market and then developed the App Store in 2008 that has given yet another alternate revenue source to smartphone manufacturers. With most iPhone developers monetizing their apps using ads, Apple’s interest in mobile advertising is natural.
As per the businessweek report, a source familiar to Steve says that, Steve is unhappy with the current state of the mobile ad industry and is in talks with his associates to revamp it. Exactly how it will be done was not specified; but its believed that Apple will certainly use the user data available to it via the App store and iTunes with the help of which they can customize the ads to the specific users as per their geo-locations and particular app preferences. This will help create (more…)
From consumer complaints to confusion to the software problems, Google is seeing it all. But this one has come right out of the blue.
From what we read, it seems like Nexusone is being sued for copyright violations.
Now this one starts with Philip K Dicks novel “Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?”. This book was widely appreciated and thence later made into a sci-fi movie called “Blade Runner” having Harrison Ford and Rutger Hauer in the lead , which again was a huge hit among the sci-fi movie fans. (more…)
“Welcome to the world of direct sales”, says users and “Google aren’t ready for customer support as they have never sold hardware before” is what analysts have to say.
With the deluge of the customer queries and complaints coming Google’s way, its ironic that the best they can do is answer their customers via email and that too with a Turn-Around Time of one to two days.
That is something which reflects on Google’s ability to service customer as inept but at the same time shows that they weren’t ready for this and (more…)
Last week, we published some pricing and availability details of Nexus One. But as it turns out , details of an Early Termination Fee (ETF) have now surfaced from the Super Phone’s Terms of Sale.
It’s clear that Nexus One is priced $530 for unlocked version or $180 subsidized version with a 2-year T-Mobile contract for US Customers. Note that here, $180 is just for the phone, you have a separate $80 /month charges from T-Mobile.
What happens if you cancel the contract within the first 120 days? Well, in that case, you have to pay Google the difference between subsidized and unsubsidized versions of the phone i.e $530 – $180 = $350!
What hurts more is that this $350 ETF is Google-only i.e you have another ETF kind of charge from the side of your carrier as well (whose contract you are canceling). Yet another twist in the tale is that, existing T-Mobile customers in the US have to purchase a new contract; they CANNOT purchase Nexus One on their current contracts.
Google has not still cleared if the double ETF is an error. They have chose to keep mum on this one for now. We recommend that if you want to get rid off all these complexities and simply want to enjoy your Nexus One experience, you have no option but to buy the $530 unlocked phone. (more…)
It has been more than a year since Google’s mobile operating system, Android, was released. And the last few months have finally seen it making its presence felt in the market with a number of terrific handsets, most notably the Motorola Droid and the HTC Hero. Ironically, it is this very profusion of handsets that is providing the OS with its biggest challenge. For, just about every major handset out there is running a different version of Android – the Hero is on 1.5, the Droid on 2.0, the Nexus One on 2.1 and there a few handsets on 1.6 too. And they are all different in more than nomenclature – those using versions 2.0 and 2.1 get the joys of voice navigation and better apps, among a host of other features.
Android fan boys, and many others, will point out that this is in fact is a good thing as it just shows how rapidly the OS is developing and that even the much-hyped Symbian and iPhone operating systems have different versions running on devices. While I can see their point, there is one crucial difference between what happens to Symbian and the iPhone OS and Android – in the case of the former two, the user has the power to upgrade, while in the case of Android, he or she is almost always at the mercy of the manufacturer.
For instance, I have the HTC Hero since September and have been waiting for an upgrade to 2.1, or heck, even 1.6. I do have the option to root my device and upgrade it but that would render its warranty void. (more…)
There were multiple rumors that a strong reason (or perhaps the only) for Google not integrating multi-touch (pinch to zoom that is) in the US release of Android phones (until now) 
The choice of integration of Google Buzz with Gmail was a good choice rather than creating a whole new application cause as per ComScore pegged Gmail at 176.5 million unique visitors in December 2009. Google Buzz has been the talk of town, Google learnt with Google Wave that creating something abstract and building and hyping it up and if the product does not live up to its expectations. But then they took the same learning, integrated Wave to Gmail, put status updates from Gtalk and Twitter, Gmail users can share Videos from Youtube and Photos form Flickr.
If Nexus One customers canceled their contract within the first 
If there is anything that the poor sales of the Google Nexus One proves to me, its the control, the evil control rather – that the US carriers have over the mobile market. Long before Google unveiled the Nexus one, it was rumored that Cupertino is cooking plans to end the carrier raj in US. In their small way they did, however Nexus One was tied to T-Mobile. Selling solely over the Internet, NexusOne is surely rated high by the powerusers. I can see the craze amongst my friends on twitter here in India (with a few luck ones getting the device already).
When Google launched its turn-by-turn maps navigation for Android, it made the Droid a whole lot powerful with a superb GPS software. Having the Google search for GPS was amazing. And today Nokia has went free with navigation services via its own Ovi Maps. Coming to 10 S60 handsets to begin with the Ovi Maps navigation would also be brought to Maemo and S40 series models along with being preloaded on Nokia devices from March 2010.
This seems to be a break up of sorts between two gigantic giants of Silicon Valley. After the latest news of Apple wanting to 
What happens if you cancel the contract within the first 120 days? Well, in that case, you have to pay Google the difference between subsidized and unsubsidized versions of the phone i.e $530 – $180 = $350!
