Remember the display on your first mobile phone? If you’ve been chatting on the go for as long as we have, it was probably barely big enough to fit a complete telephone number — let alone a contact name or text message. And your first smartphone? Even displaying scaled-down, WAP versions of web pages was asking a lot. Now, those mobile devices we couldn’t live without have screens that are much, much larger. Sometimes, though, we secretly wish they were even bigger still.
Samsung’s new GT-N7000 Galaxy Note is the handset those dreams are made of — if you happen to share that dream about obnoxiously large smartphones, that is. It’s as thin as a Galaxy S II, lightning fast and its 5.3-inch HD Super AMOLED display is as gorgeous as it is enormous; the 1280 x 800 pixels you once could only get with a full-size laptop (or in the Galaxy Tab 10.1) can now slide comfortably into your front pocket. Its jumbo display makes it the perfect candidate for a notepad replacement and, with the included S Pen stylus, you’ll have no problem jotting notes on the fly, marking up screenshots or signing documents electronically. But, is that massive display too much of a good thing? You’ll need to jump past the break to find out.
Over the past few weeks both Apple and Samsung have been highlighting the impressive results of their flagship devices. Apple boasted first weekend iPhone 4S sales of over 4 million, probably the next time we’ll hear something more is when they reach 10 million. Samsung just announced that the Galaxy S and Galaxy S II have combined total sales of over 30 million units.
Now that the Q3 smartphone manufacturer numbers are out, Strategy Analytics has compiled all the results and stated that “Samsung Becomes World’s Number One Smartphone Vendor in Q3 2011″. In Q3 2011, Samsung shipped 27.8 million smartphones and raked in 23.8% global market share. Apple slipped to second place with 17.1 million iPhones shipped, representing 14.6% market share. Even though Nokia has been in a heavy transition period they managed to hold onto 3rd place with 16.8 million smartphones shipped, claiming 14.4% market share. RIM, LG, Sony Ericsson, Motorola all make up the “others” category.
Strategy Anaytics also noted that global smartphone shipments grew 44% over last year to reach a record 117 million units (81 million smartphones shipped in Q3 2010). It’ll be interesting to see who takes top spot in the peak Q4 period because we’ll see the iPhone 4S results, the Galaxy S II lineup and the Galaxy Nexus, plus Nokia’s entry with Windows Phone devices.
The CRTC is investigating Rogers Communications because it believes the way the company deliberately slows down some of its internet traffic violates federal rules.
While everyone was in a tizzy about Amazon’s $199 Kindle Fire price point, the Indian government was busily working to help bring out the $35 Aakash Android tablet. The tablet was developed with similarly good intentions as OLPC’s XO laptop before it — an attempt to get low-cost computing devices into the hands of students. One of the tablets landed in the VentureBeat offices this week. The site spent some hands-on time with the Froyo slate, and mostly liked what it saw, noting that seeming compromises made for price and a speedy release date ultimately benefit the whole of the device. The tablet will start hitting India next month, at the $35 government-subsidized pricepoint (actual retail price is a still mega-cheap $60).
The Saskatchewan Party’s promise to change the school year to start after the Labour Day long weekend is not sitting well with organizations that represent teachers and school boards.
Things were starting to look pretty bleak in Q2 for AMD, but Q3 is an entirely different story. The company reported a revenue of $1.69 billion, up 7-percent from last quarter. More importantly, net income climbed to $97 million, up from just $61 million in Q2 and a far cry from the $118 million loss posted this time last year. Even the graphics division had good news to share. After the former ATI ran at an operating loss of $7 million last quarter, it netted $12 million in operating income in Q2. We wouldn’t exactly call this the second coming of the CPU underdog, but it certainly should make fans and investors sleep a little better at night. Check out the complete PR after the break.
The upcoming BBX “superphones” from Research In Motion are going to very exciting – ones that we hope will truly bring the company back into a leadership position. A couple concept videos have surfaced online that are reminiscent to Micorsoft’s “Office 2019” futuristic video. RIM has labeled these as the “BlackBerry Enterprising Minds” and gives their take on what the next few years might look like: lots of touchscreens, heavy on security with your phone becoming your personal access pass, and overall simple to use. The design of the BlackBerry devices (smartphones and tablets) seems to be a bit thick, but the way people will mainly communicate is through video calling. Check them out below.
There’s been plenty of speculation about what the future holds for HP and its Personal Systems Group — a group that CEO Leo Apotheker seemed intent to shed — but the crew now led by CEO Meg Whitman has just confirmed that division is staying home, where it belongs. Meg says the company “objectively evaluated” the idea of spinning PSG off but decided that keeping it in-house is “right for customers and partners, right for shareholders, and right for employees.” Or, maybe her reserve wasn’t met. Either way, the press release after the break goes on to confirm that the board believes PSG will continue to “drive profitable growth” in these challenging times. Maybe good ‘ol Leo was right when he said “You still need larger machines to handle heavy-duty tasks.” Heavy indeed.
Update: Oh, and in case you had any doubts, HP is actually going to use Windows 8 (when available) to make its tablets appealing. And now you know.
Fishermen in Córdoba, Argentina caught a three-eyed wolf fish in a reservoir fed by a local nuclear power plant, which will surely hinder the plant’s owner’s attempt to run for local office. More »
We think Google+ should get better every time you use it. It’s not enough to obsess over community feedback (which we do); we also need to surprise and delight you with constant improvements (which we also try and do). Today’s no different, so we’re rolling out four new features in four different areas.
What’s Hot on Google+: see what everyone’s talking about
Google+ users share and receive billions of items every day—on a wide range of topics, in nearly every country. Circles give you a personal lens on all this activity, helping you focus on updates from your family or your favorite celebrities. But sometimes you want to know what the world is so excited about. Whether it’s breaking news or beautiful photos, you just don’t want to miss anything. With this in mind, we’re launching “What’s Hot” on Google+, a new place to visit for interesting and unexpected content:
Google+ Ripples: watch how posts get shared
There’s something deeply satisfying about sharing on Google+, then watching the activity unfold. Comments pour in, notifications light up, friends share with friends (who share with their friends), and in no time at all there’s an entire community around your post. We want to help people re-live those conversations—both to rekindle that initial excitement, and to learn how posts flow across the network. That’s why we’re launching Google+ Ripples: a visualization tool for public shares and comments.
To get started, just find a public post that interests you, and select “View Ripples.” From there you can replay its activity, zoom in on certain events, identify top contributors and much more. Google+ Ripples is still experimental, so let us know how we can make it more informative and more awesome:
Google+ Creative Kit: have more fun with your photos
Nothing tells a story like the perfect picture, so it’s only natural to want to make yours really, really, really, ridiculously good-looking. Unfortunately, photo editing is too often a chore, requiring specialized software and lots of patience. We want to help everyone put their best photo forward, so today we’re introducing the Google+ Creative Kit, a fast and friendly way to make powerful edits to your photos.
Now you can add that vintage feel to your vacation photos. Or sharpen those snapshots from the family barbeque. Or add some text for added personality. With the Creative Kit, all you need is an idea:
Of course: we also think photo editing should be lots of fun. So we’ve added some limited-edition Halloween effects to the Creative Kit, and we’re inviting everyone on Google+ to join a ghoulish (and good-spirited) photo competition.
Through the end of October, simply add some spook to your photos, and share them publicly on Google+ with the hashtag #gplushalloween. We’ll assemble a surprise panel of celebrities, and next Thursday, Nov 3, they’ll announce their favorites. In the meantime, you can see early submissions from community members below. After all: we take our fun very seriously. 🙂
… Google Apps customers can now use Google+
You’ve been asking for it. I’ve been talking about it. And today we’re excited to make Google+ available to all Google Apps customers worldwide. Visit the Google Enterprise Blog for more details.
We think Google+ should get better every time you use it, and we hope it feels that way today. If ever it doesn’t, we hope you’ll let us know.
Posted by Vic Gundotra, Senior Vice President of Engineering
Well, well, what do we have here? These Logitech Revue boxes just hit the sales floor of a major electronics retailer, prominently sporting "New & Improved: Google TV with Android 3.1 and Android Market” stickers. Logitech also released its quarterly earnings overnight, claiming $7.9 million in sales from the Revue and accessories since dumping its CEO and slashing prices to $99. These haven’t been cracked open yet to see if any Honeycomb leaks out, so it’s possible they’re just waiting for the long-delayed OTA update like all the others. Still, if you’re trying to get a jump on the second major Google TV push without any hackery needed, it could be worth scouting store shelves in your area.
Update: As a few commenters have pointed out, a support rep on Logitech’s forums indicates these boxes have been updated with a sticker only. You’ll still have to wait Google to deliver the goods along with everyone else.
Update 2: Logitech reached out to us with the following statement:
We’d like to clarify that these products do not include the next version of Google TV software. The boxes were prematurely updated with the stickers in anticipation of the next release of the Google TV software, which, once available, will be a free and automatic update pushed to all Logitech Revue boxes that are installed and connected to the Internet.
This DIY LED display falls deeply into the “We think it’s awesome; glad he’s not our neighbor” category. Check out the video to see a 1144-channel LED extravaganza.
The home featured in the above video has made several appearances over the last few years, but this year is by far the most over the top version. Sporting thousands of LEDs organized into a massive array of programmable channels, the light show is something to behold. We can only imagine his neighbors use some equally heavy hitting draperies to block out the blinding light show.
For the curious, he’s driving the whole assembly with equipment from Light-O-Rama–if you’re looking to follow in his footsteps make sure to hit up the Light-O-Rama forums.
Two things. One, we're going to need a lot of hand sanitizer if Microsoft is right about the all-touch-everything future. Two, I'm surprised how much I like Microsoft's vision—it's futuristic, natural and metro-y. More »
Sadly, we weren’t able to replicate the screenshot above but, if it’s legit, it could mean that a Google Music store is right around the corner. Reports are coming in that visiting music.google.com on your Android phone brings up a page suggesting you, A, upload your personal music collection, and B, “shop millions of songs in the Android Market.” Clearly Google is tinkering away behind the scenes: the links on the earliest versions of the splash page were reported to be broken, then they led to the about page for Google Music Manager and the nonexistent market.android.com/music respectively. Now, all traces of it are gone. Add to this the familiar shopping bag-shaped music icon that popped up in the developer build of Chrome OS last week and it’s looking like we’re inching ever closer to a Google Music shop launch. Check out the full sized image after the break.
Android: Jeannie, formerly Pannous Voice Actions for Android (not to be confused with Google Voice Actions) has always been a solid voice control utility for your Android phone, but the developers have taken a page out of Apple’s book and updated the app with a new name and the ability to hold its own in a conversation with you, the ability to set alarms and send emails, play music, tell jokes, look up the news, and search the web. More »
The ESNET security company is reporting that the Tsunami Trojan originally developed for Linux systems has been ported to OSX. The Trojan is designed to hijack an infected system and use its network connection in DDoS attacks or to automatically download more malware. More details are available at MacWorld. More »
Who’s ready for a little gadget pr0n? ASUS head honcho Jonney Shih gave AsiaD attendees a first peek at the Transformer’s successor just last week. Apart from that distant, dais-based reveal, we now have in the wild shots of the tab to focus our tech lust on. The leaked images, which have since been pulled from the Chinese site that hosted them, show off several angles of the quad-core Prime, its Zenbook-like aluminum finish and accompanying dock. Unfortunately, the lone lockscreen shot on offer’s not giving us any taste of the potential Ice Cream Sandwich OS lurking beneath. Hungry for the full tablet spread? Then hit up the source below to get your gawking a-go-go.
