Google phone prototype next week

Time for Google and its partners to show their hand. And Android will be on the market this year, thanks to T-Mobile:

Deutsche Telekom's (DTEGn.DE: Quote, Profile, Research) T-Mobile and Taiwan's High Tech Computer Corp. (HTC) (2498.TW: Quote, Profile, Research) have said that they plan to offer phones based on the open-source Android software platform this year.

ARM to show Google phone prototype next week: source | Reuters

Blogged with Flock

Flock friends MySpace

Thanks to the new MySpace Developer Platform, the social browser Flock will soon support MySpace the same way it supports Facebook, Twitter, and Flickr. Yet another site that I won't have to log into on a daily basis anymore.

» Bebo buyout rumor; Flock friends MySpace; Wikinvest and Dealipedia | The Social Web | ZDNet.com

Blogged with Flock

An open-access manifesto and a response

Anne Galloway takes danah boyd to task over how to resist closed-access publishing. This is a debate that has been touched upon at KairosNews and other computers-and-composition venues.

Purse Lip Square Jaw: Boycott? I think not.

Blogged with Flock

God-o-Meter

How much are candidates talking about God? Here's the answer, and in some cases, it's surprising. What I like about it is that the candidates' heads are arrayed on the scale and you can click the heads for the latest rating and news. The headshots remind me of the top left corner of classic Marvel comics; it's like a Marvel Team-Up for the elections.

God-o-Meter - A scientific measure of God-talk in the elections

Blogged with Flock

Google Spreadsheets now offers forms

So if you want to conduct a survey, you can have everyone fill out a form and the information is automagically entered into your spreadsheet. You still control the spreadsheet. Doing this gives Google Apps some light Access-like capability, positioning it to compete against Access and online analogs such as Blist for the low-end user. Oh, and it also threatens services such as SurveyMonkey.

Official Google Docs Blog: Stop sharing spreadsheets, start collecting information

Blogged with Flock

Google Apps Team Edition

Responding to the fears of IT in large organizations, Google makes Google Apps available for everyone sharing an email domain. They see this as a way to beef up security while spreading the word about cloud computing:

With Team Edition anyone can open an account and start using the apps with anyone within the organization. For instance, a group working on a team project could use Google Apps Team Edition and be able to access the shared documents from any computer over the Internet.

"Google Apps Team Edition is another on ramp" to Web-hosted apps, Milo said. "They are one more way for businesses to get comfortable with computing in the cloud and anywhere, any time access to critical information."

Google Apps Team Edition aims to move companies to the cloud | Tech news blog - CNET News.com

Blogged with Flock

Is there anything they can't do?

Recently I've pointed to stories of cellphones being used to track traffic flow, transfer funds, and open public toilets. Now this.

Smart Mobs » Blog Archive » Cellphones to detect dirty bombs?

Blogged with Flock

Google’s Android Is Already Delayed

Not an auspicious beginning.

Google’s Android Is Already Delayed

Blogged with Flock

The Register looks at Android

... and turns up some obstacles to adoption. Including this:

Google suggests a minimum specification of a 200MHz ARM9, with 64Mb RAM and 64Mb Flash. We all know what minimum specs mean

Google Android - a sneak preview | Reg Developer

Blogged with Flock

This says something about mobile phone use in Finland

SMS opens public toilets in Finland - Boing Boing

Blogged with Flock

New Opera Mobile is out

Version 9.5. I'm going to download it right now. Opera has improved tremendously over the last year, and it finally has features such as tabbed browsing and copy-and-paste.

Oops (9:08am): That's Opera Mobile, for smart phones. I'm using Opera Mini because my phone (Samsung A900M) is not considered all that smart.

Opera unleashes innovative technology in latest mobile Web browser — Opera Mobile 9.5

Blogged with Flock

Blist

Blist, the Flash-based social database builder, had its beta launch last week. In a nutshell, it's an attractively designed database along the lines of MS Access, surprisingly complex for a web app, but still fairly easy to use. As with other web apps, this one allows you to build social databases, review others' databases, etc.

Unfortunately, it looks like the dashboard and discover features are not yet active, so we only get a dummy view to hint at what sorts of blists might be developed: a to do blist, two lists of target VCs, a recipe blist. There's a difference between database-as-container, database-as-application, and database-as-set-of-data, and it's unclear which of these will really take off or how they will be separated and rated.

Nevertheless, this really has been a missing piece in online office tools. If you can get over having your databases posted online, it may be a good Access competitor. And the Flash interface will go well with Buzzword and other Flash-based apps.

Blogged with Flock

Scoble on Google, Microsoft, and Yahoo

He doesn't think Google actually cares about a Microsoft-Yahoo merger, it just wants to slow things down. Google isn't taking its eye off the most important ball:

Every month longer that this deal takes is tens of millions in Google’s pockets. Why? Well, the real race today isn’t for search. Isn’t for email. Isn’t for IM. It’s for ownership of your mobile phone.

I concur for the most part. The mobile phone is a cheap, internetworked platform that is being adopted globally at a furious rate. Microsoft is stuck supporting its legacy OS for PCs, while Google is putting together an OS and apps for a platform that will be in everyone's pockets. Meanwhile, no one is in love with Windows Mobile.

What you all are missing about Google « Scobleizer — Tech geek blogger

Blogged with Flock

EETimes.com analyzes the Open Handset Alliance for clues about the gPhone

Interesting stuff, though it reaches at times. Take this section:

The mobile Opera Mini 4 browser has just been released, to rave reviews. This seems to be just the ticket the GPhone could use as its killer app, since Opera Mini 4 is optimized for quicker scrolling, navigation, and page rendering on mobile handsets.

However, Opera is not an Open Handset Alliance member. Still, that's not necessarily an impediment to the GPhone's adoption of the browser. Consider than an Opera spokesperson coyly refused to tell ZDNet whether the company has been approached to join the Alliance, and added that Opera is "very close to Google."

Sure, but Opera's default search is still Yahoo. On the other hand, if Microsoft buys Yahoo, I imagine Opera will run quickly from that deal. Google is the obvious alternate, and perhaps the Opera folks will find it useful to cozy up to them now without officially making a deal.

EETimes.com - Inside the gPhone: What to expect from Google's Android alliance

Blogged with Flock

Spatializing your calendar

Mashups: Show GCal Events on Google Maps

Blogged with Flock

Robots learning all our vices

Not only do they kill, now they lie too.

Robots Learn To Lie

Blogged with Flock

Finally

When this officially rolls out, it will cut out about half of my remaining MS Word use.

Google Docs Offline Access

Blogged with Flock

Sprout: The Online WYSIWYG Editor for Flash

I said a couple of years ago that the coming thing would be easy, amateur-oriented end-user programming.  We're starting to see RIA apps that deliver on that promise. Sprout may be one: An online WYSIWYG editor for Flash.

Sprout: The Online WYSIWYG Editor for Flash

Blogged with Flock

ControlC

Yet another basic function from desktop OS is turned into a web service. Social copy-and-paste?

ControlC is an interesting new site that takes normal copy and pasting (Ctrl-C) and runs it through a web service.

At its most basic, after you create an account and install the software, any time you hit Ctrl-C, the information is saved to the ControlC website as well as your local clipboard, as simple text or as a URL link if what you’ve copied is a link.

I'm still trying to decide if this is clever or not.
ControlC: Turning Cut & Paste Into A Web Service

Blogged with Flock

Huddle

A new Basecamp competitor with Facebook integration. It handles MS Office documents via integration with appropriate web-based office tools.

Huddle uses new apps and Facebook to take on Basecamp

Blogged with Flock