May 212010

Here's the Official GoogleTV Announcement: "If there’s one entertainment device that people know and love, it’s the television. In fact, 4 billion people across the world watch TV and the average American spends five hours per day in front of one*. Recently, however, an increasing amount of our entertainment experience is coming from our phones and computers. One reason is that these devices have something that the TV lacks: the web. With the web, finding and accessing interesting content is fast and often as easy as a search. But the web still lacks many of the great features and the high-quality viewing experience that the TV offers. So that got us thinking...what if we helped people experience the best of TV and the best of the web in one seamless experience? Imagine turning on the TV and getting all the channels and shows you normally watch and all of the websites you browse all day — including your favorite video, music and photo sites. We’re excited to announce that we’ve done just that.

Google TV is a new experience for television that combines the TV that you already know with the freedom and power of the Internet. With Google Chrome built in, you can access all of your favorite websites and easily move between television and the web. This opens up your TV from a few hundred channels to millions of channels of entertainment across TV and the web. Your television is also no longer confined to showing just video. With the entire Internet in your living room, your TV becomes more than a TV — it can be a photo slideshow viewer, a gaming console, a music player and much more. Google TV uses search to give you an easy and fast way to navigate to television channels, websites, apps, shows and movies. For example, already know the channel or program you want to watch? Just type in the name and you’re there. Want to check out that funny YouTube video on your 48” flat screen? It’s just a quick search away. If you know what you want to watch, but you’re not sure where to find it, just type in what you’re looking for and Google TV will help you find it on the web or on one of your many TV channels. If you’d rather browse than search, you can use your standard program guide, your DVR or the Google TV home screen, which provides quick access to all of your favorite entertainment so you’re always within reach of the content you love most. Because Google TV is built on open platforms like Android and Google Chrome, these features are just a fraction of what Google TV can do. In our announcement today at Google I/O, we challenged web developers to start coming up with the next great web and Android apps designed specifically for the TV experience. Developers can start optimizing their websites for Google TV today. Soon after launch, we’ll release the Google TV SDK and web APIs for TV so that developers can build even richer applications and distribute them through Android Market. We've already started building strategic alliances with a number of companies — like Jinni.com and Rovi — at the leading edge of innovation in TV technology. Jinni.com is a next-generation TV application working to provide semantic search, personalized recommendation and social features for Google TV across all sources of premium content available to the user. Rovi is one of the world's leading guide applications. We’re looking forward to seeing all of the ways developers will use this new platform. We’re working together with Sony and Logitech to put Google TV inside of televisions, Blu-ray players and companion boxes. These devices will go on sale this fall, and will be available at Best Buy stores nationwide. You can sign up here to get updates on Google TV availability. This is an incredibly exciting time — for TV watchers, for developers and for the entire TV ecosystem. By giving people the power to experience what they love on TV and on the web on a single screen, Google TV turns the living room into a new platform for innovation. We're excited about what’s coming. We hope you are too." Grab our RSS to stay updated on this story. Source: Droid Cell Phone

Posted by at 8:34 am Tagged with: , ,
May 152010

WASHINGTON — At least 65,000 mobile phones powered by Google's Android operating system are being shipped every day, Google chief executive Eric Schmidt said Thursday. Schmidt, speaking at Google's annual shareholder meeting at the company's headquarters in Mountain View, California, said the open-source Android system is now being used on 34 mobile devices in 49 countries. "It looks like Android is going to be either the number one or number two player" in the mobile phone market, he said at the meeting which was streamed live on Google-owned YouTube. Google makes its Android software available to handset manufacturers and also sells its own smartphone, the Nexus One. "Our partners are shipping about 65,000 Android handsets per day but if you check the blogosphere you'll discover there are some reports that that number might be quite low," Schmidt said. Sales of more than two million Android handsets a month would approach those of Google rival Apple, which reported sales of 8.75 million iPhones last quarter. According to industry research firm NPD, US sales of smartphones running Android actually surged past those of Apple in the first quarter of the year. Android-powered smartphones accounted for 28 percent of US consumer sales compared with 21 percent for the iPhone, NPD said. Canada's Research in Motion, maker of the popular Blackberry, retained the top spot with 36 percent of US smartphone sales in the quarter. "Our strategy is very different from everybody else's," Schmidt said of Android. "We license our code for free, so that's really pretty revolutionary. "We're trying to build an entire ecosystem of openness, the inverse of the other guys," he said, without mentioning Apple by name. Google co-founder Larry Page, who also attended the meeting, said the strategy of getting more devices running Android provides benefits "through more (Google) searches and other things that we do. "I think you'll see that as those products mature we'll figure out how to make more money from them," Page said. Schmidt agreed, saying "while it's true that we're very happy to give away Android, the applications and the services that can be provided on a very large, very broad framework can be enormously valuable over the next five or 10 years." Source AFP News Over the last 6 month Verizon Wireless, Wirefly EBay Amazon and Vodafone have been the major players in The Smartphone market. We belive that after Google stops selling phones the amount of networks will Increase.

Posted by at 7:15 pm Tagged with: , , , ,
May 152010

googlephone The Grande experiment is changing. It is no surprise to those who follow tech. Google moving from search to selling phones was a leap to say the least. Most business folks batted a eye when they heard the search giant was going to sell phones. It now appears Google is seeing what others foreseen and have decided to change the way users buy Nexus One Phones. The online Nexus One Store will be closed and the Smartphone will be made available through retail outlets and Vodafone in Europe. Would be buyers would get support online or from the network they made the purchase from. 

 

 

“Nexus One changes in availability”

5/14/2010 09:30:00 AM

“We launched Nexus One in January with two goals in mind: to introduce a beacon of innovation among Android handsets, and to make it quick and easy for people to buy an Android phone. We’re very happy with the adoption of Android in general, and the innovation delivered through Nexus One. Already, a lot of the innovation that went into creating Nexus One has found its way into numerous Android handsets, like the HTC Evo 4G from Sprint and the Verizon Droid Incredible by HTC.
But, as with every innovation, some parts worked better than others. While the global adoption of the Android platform has exceeded our expectations, the web store has not. It’s remained a niche channel for early adopters, but it’s clear that many customers like a hands-on experience before buying a phone, and they also want a wide range of service plans to chose from.
So today we’re announcing the following changes:
More retail availability. As we make Nexus One available in more countries we’ll follow the same model we’ve adopted in Europe, where we're working with partners to offer Nexus One to consumers through existing retail channels. We’ll shift to a similar model globally.
From retail to viewing. Once we have increased the availability of Nexus One devices in stores, we'll stop selling handsets via the web store, and will instead use it as an online store window to showcase a variety of Android phones available globally.
Innovation requires constant iteration. We believe that the changes we're announcing today will help get more phones to more people quicker, which is good for the entire Android ecosystem: users, partners and also Google.
Posted by Andy Rubin, VP, Engineering”

Source: Nexus Cell Phone VIA Google Blog. It should be pointed out that this move has nothing to do with Nexus One. The Phone is one of the Best Rated Smartphone's. It has also been seen in the wild running Android Froyo 2.2 OS. The Nexus One is developers preferred phone and will receive all the major OS update first. So don't think for a second the G Phone is going away. In fact this move could put the Smartphone in even more pockets.

Posted by at 8:49 am Tagged with: , , ,