With Twitter and Facebook being in many ways the most popular and used websites out there, it makes sense that Google would try to get into the competition. Google tried once before by buying Jaiku, which was a Twitter-like service that later died. Now Google looks to try using what it already has in place to push Buzz to as many people as possible.
That platform would be Gmail. Buzz at first glance comes off as a bit of a Twitter-clone built into Gmail. It’s a service for sharing short messages, photos and videos with your friends. Of course, unlike Twitter and Facebook, there’s theoretically a way to automatically include everyone as it just takes your friends from Google Contacts. Buzz makes it possible to link to other web services like Picasa, Flickr, Twitter and Google Reader, which looks to be a nice feature. Everything is viewed in the same box, so no going outside of Buzz to watch a video or look at photos, and new comments appear in realtime lie Google Wave. Of course, since it uses GMail, Buzz will send you an email whenever someone responds to your buzz, or one you commented on.
The web version of Buzz allows for adding in a location, as well as posting through voice on Android phones and iPhones. The problem, however, comes in the fact that Buzz is limited to Android 2.0+ and the iPhone, with the Buzz layer for Maps also available on Windows Mobile and Symbian. That leaves those of us with anything other than an iPhone, Nexus One or Droid left out for the moment, until BlackBerry, WinMo and Symbian compatibility. That still leaves those who have Android phones running 1.6 out of the possible fun.
Buzz itself, while it looks to be an interesting idea, will take some time to see how it succeeds. For someone like me, who tends to not have the email of everybody, the geolocation seems to be all I can get special given the layering on Google Maps. For those who do have a lot of contacts via email, it might be tough to convince others to use it over Facebook or Twitter. Until proven otherwise, I’d categorize it similar to Google Talk: a nice, interesting improvement that remains a curiosity unless friends can be convinced to use it in addition to or on top of other services.
Designer Yun Hwan Sung came up with a concept USB flash drive called the “Bills USB” (Bills as in Bill Gates?). Ditching the whole idea of encryption, Yun opted for a combination a lock instead. The USB connector remains hidden and retracted until you get the right combination to unlock it. That is a pretty neat idea, but the USB drive seems to be a little too big for me. Some people may find the size to be just right; it won’t get lost easily. It would’ve been better if the drive had some sort of software-based encryption built into it as that would provide double protection for your important data!
Today, zoomMediaPlus announces the zoomIt, a SD card reader dock for iPhone and iPod touch. The attachment allows the Apple products to access data on an SD card and share this data to and from the SD card. The unit will be available in April and will sell for a reasonable $59.99.
Whether it’s giving your digicam images a way to get to Facebook or Flicr or off-loading your iPhone’s images, even casual photographers should see great benefit in this product. Made to work with all memory levels of iPhones and iPod touch SDK 3.0 and above devices, the zoomIt will allow access to iPhone OS file types including photos, music, videos, and documents (.PPT, .XLS, .DOC, .PDF, etc.). Users can forgo connecting to a computer to get access to their images and just connect to their iPhone or touch.
"We're excited not only by what zoomIt does for user-generated content but by what it can also do to create alternative methods of content distribution other than optical CD/DVD and downloadable," said Richard Sfeir, CEO, zoomMediaPlus. "With the iPhone and iPod touch being the dominant portable multimedia platform, we're excited about enabling preloaded content on SD cards to give the industry and consumers new ways to distribute and consume protected content."
Currently, protected content such as licensed movies, music and images will be supported in a future release. The zoomIt team is working doubly hard to make that a reality as the company believes it can follow in the honored footsteps of Slot Music and the like for content sales on a SD card. Sweet. I kid here but the ability to load up several movies on a card for say a long flight would be welcome, especially to users who opted for an 8GB device.
In my recent quest to learn and use webOS as much as possible, one of the must have apps on my handset is Twitter related. So far I have checked out Twee as well as Tweed and settled in using TweeFree. As a side note, I am using the free version of Twee simply because I am using a review handset and do not want to pay for apps.
Anyway, in my searching I discovered that another Twitter app has recently launched for webOS devices. The app is called Bad Kitty and will work on either the Pre, Pre Plus, Pixi or Pixi Plus. Basically it will work on all webOS devices that are running 1.3.1 or later.
I will say that the app itself has gone untested by me personally, again because of the price. It is selling for what seems to be a reasonable $2.99, but again, I am on a review phone.
Feature wise, the Bad Kitty app is listing as having support for multiple Twitter accounts, auto-refresh with background notifications, image previews, list support and the ability to choose your font-size. Of course, these are in addition to the normal features that you would expect to find in a Twitter app such as posting tweets, checking your timeline, replies and messages. Additionally, the app is using oAuth to authorize your login, which means you are not sharing your Twitter password with anyone other than Twitter.
All things considered, Bad Kitty seems to be a nice alternative, and who knows, should I decide to get a webOS phone in the future I will have to check it out.
Late last month we mentioned that T-Mobile was preparing to offer a trackball replacement program for select models of the BlackBerry Pearl and Curve, and sadly this latest post is to let you know that the program launch has been delayed.
Thankfully though the delay is fairly short, well, fairly short assuming your trackball is not completely messed up. Anyway, the program was originally expected to kick off on February 15, 2010, but has now been pushed back until February 24.
Basically, its a one week delay. And just to recap, this trackball replacement program is going to be open for T-Mobile customers that are using the BlackBerry Pearl 8100 or 8120 or a BlackBerry Curve 8320.
FROM APPLETELL - Apple Store Down, Apple Store Down, looking like a fool with your Apple Store Down… Yes, the Apple Store is down, just in time to say thanks to Macworld again. MORE »
I will say that since having received the Pre Plus and Pixi Plus review units—I am enjoying using the Pixi Plus quite a bit more than I originally expected. Given that I started to search around trying to find the best price available. Well, it seems that depending on where you shop, the Palm Pixi Plus can be purchased for $49.99 or even free. Both of those are on-contract of course, and they are also much nicer than the current price that you will pay directly with Verizon. Getting right down to the best price scenario, the free offer comes courtesy of Wirefly, which also throws in free shipping. The $49.99 offer is coming by way of Amazon. The nice part with both of these deals is that the prices shown are after instant discounts, which means no messy mail-in-rebates to worry about. And just for those keeping track, the Pixi Plus is currently selling for $99.99 directly with Verizon.
FROM APPLETELL - Navigon’s at it again. No surprise, really. This time, they’ve been working on Panorama View 3D and MyRoutes. Oh yeah, they also added Twitter and Facebook connectivity. MORE »
Both Samsung and LG, the two giants of flat-screen TV manufacturers, will be releasing 3D TVs starting next month. Samsung will launch its LED 9000 LCD featuring a powerful 3D processor, while LG rolls out LED LCDs with sizes ranging from 32” to 55” (Infinia LE9500). Competition in the 3D TV industry is certainly strong as LG stressed that it will be the industry leader in 2011, selling 3.4 million units. Samsung’s forecasted figures are just a humble 2.6 million, which is not too far behind LG. With such intense competition, I do hope that it will lead to lower prices of 3D TVs.
Google’s Gmail has been the king of e-mail for several years now. But new means of communication through social networks such as Twitter and Facebook have eliminated a lot of the social communication that e-mail once had. Let’s all be honest it’s 10x easier to DM your friend on Facebook and Twitter because you are already on them and it doesn’t require you to look at all of the work in your inbox.
However, it has now been reported that Google plans to try and win back that social aspect that e-mail used to have. A new plugin for Gmail will implement an interface similar to your Facebook news stream or Twitter stream, containing updates about people they choose to connect with. This stream, I assume, will contain various types of status updates directly from the users, as well as the updates from various other Google services such as Picasa and Youtube.
This new update’s success really all depends on if people will be willing to mix work with pleasure again. E-mail inboxes have notoriously become a pain to filter through and trying to now make a “fun” experience out of it is like your parents telling you to make a game out of cleaning your room when you were little.
As for me, I’ll probably use it. And since Google already owns all of my contacts as well as just about everything on the web, I figure handing them my social life is no big deal.
Motorola chose to announce some pretty exciting information via Facebook earlier today. Rather than issuing a formal press release, Motorola has stated the Motorola Droid will be receiving an Android 2.1 upgrade sometime this week. Unfortunately, it is not known whether all Droid users will be lucky enough to upgrade to 2.1. Motorola plans to have additional announcements about other software upgrades later this month as well. We will keep you updated when our Droid receives the upgrade, or when we hear about other users receiving it. Android 2.1 is the version of the Android platform the Google Nexus One smartphone runs on, so it has been available for quite some time.
According to Engadget, the 2.1 upgrade for the Droid will include a multitouch browser, pre-installed Google Goggles and upgraded news and weather widgets. However, no animated wallpapers nor 3D app icons will be featured in the upgrade. Check out Motorola’s Facebook message below.
Motorola: Hi all—we know you are frustrated with the lack of details regarding Android software upgrades and we sincerely apologize for not being able to share info sooner. We’re happy to relay the 2.1 upgrade to DROID will start to roll out this week, and we will have more information to share on other device upgrades later ...this week as well. Thanks for your patience and continued support.
The Nexus One is a strange device. It is the only cellphone of any kind that has two Early Termination Fees, one from the carrier (currently only T-Mobile), and one from Google itself. That alone was enough to get the FCC asking Google about why it charges an ETF for the Nexus One. We haven’t yet seen those answers, but we do know that Google has responded in another way.
Before today, the Nexus One came with a $350 ETF from Google, what it calls an “Equipment Recovery Fee,” that went into place within the first 120 days of ownership. Without saying a word, Google today updated the Terms of Sale for the Nexus one, cutting the ETF by $200 to $150. That fee still comes on top of the $200 ETF from T-Mobile. That’s $350 if you buy a subsidized Nexus One, which will cost you $179 to begin with. So, with going by that idea, the Nexus One will cost $529, the same price it would cost you to buy one unlocked and use as you wish.
It’s still unclear why Google would even charge for the Equipment Recovery Fee, and hopefully we will get an answer sometime soon. Until then, it makes more sense to just buy the phone unlocked and get any plan you could want. Given the way many have been talking about it, the price might just be worth it.
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With Twitter and Facebook being in many ways the most popular and used websites out there, it makes sense that Google would try to get into the competition. Google tried once before by buying Jaiku, which was a Twitter-like service that later died. Now Google looks to try using what it already has in place to push Buzz to as many people as possible.
In my recent quest to learn and use webOS as much as possible, one of the must have apps on my handset is Twitter related. So far I have checked out Twee as well as Tweed and settled in using TweeFree. As a side note, I am using the free version of Twee simply because I am using a review handset and do not want to pay for apps.
Late 
Google’s Gmail has been the king of e-mail for several years now. But new means of communication through social networks such as Twitter and Facebook have eliminated a lot of the social communication that e-mail once had. Let’s all be honest it’s 10x easier to DM your friend on Facebook and Twitter because you are already on them and it doesn’t require you to look at all of the work in your inbox.
The Nexus One is a strange device. It is the only cellphone of any kind that has two Early Termination Fees, one from the carrier (currently only T-Mobile), and one from Google itself. That alone was enough to get the FCC asking Google about why it charges an ETF for the Nexus One. We haven’t yet seen those answers, but we do know that Google has responded in another way.
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