Smartbooks Revue, Voila !

Latest from the final frontier

Samsung / LG readies Smartbook ?

Qualcomm is hoping to boost the processing speed of more mobile devices after it announced it will be bringing a smartphone and smartbook based on its superfast Snapdragon chip.

For those that don't know / don't care about the smartbook category, it's a device that bridges the shrinking gap between a smartphone and a netbook, so basically high performance in a smaller package. (And yes, we hate the name too).

Compal's Snapdragon-powered smartbook

As if it wasn't clear already, smartbooks are one of the big trends (if not the biggest) to emerge out of this year's Computex, be they Snapdragon or Tegra-powered. Just as interesting as the devices themselves, however, is the fact that a number of manufacturers are looking at using Android as an OS for 'em, including big players like ASUS, and now Compal. While's ASUS' Snapdragon-based offering was impressive enough, Compal looks to have slightly outdone it by adding a customized interface at start-up, which is apparently just a taste of further "optimizations" to come

Nokia and Intel in a partnership that will define smartbook market ?
The companies will work on a new class of devices for the emerging smartbook or MID space


4 companies leading the mobile revolution. Qualcomm is one of them

QCOM is bridging the gap between smartphones and notebooks by creating a device called a smartbook. Smartbooks are mini-laptops that are similar to netbooks, but differ such that they operate on mobile phone chips (thus QCOM chips) as opposed to PC microchips, such as Intel’s (INTC) Atom microprocessors. This device will have “the portability and intuitive feel of a smartphone combined with the versatility and capability of a notebook.” Smartbooks will come in various forms “from larger, sub-notebook designs to compact, touch-screen tablets.”

New smartbook offerings coming this year on the wings of Intel / Nokia deal

"We would expect new netbook/smartbook offerings in coming months from other traditional handset vendors such as Motorola, Samsung, and LG. Intel announced a MID deal with Korean handset maker LG at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona in February of this year, with the launch of the first Intel MID by LG expected in 2010. In addition, we expect traditional PC players such as Acer, Asus, Dell, and HP to come forward with smartbook/smartphone like devices using applications processors from Intel, Qualcomm, and Nvidia in the next few months."

Nokia order Snapdragon smartbook

As for Qualcomm’s Snapdragon chipset, that caused no small amount of fuss back at Computex for its role in the new ARM-based smartbook niche. A rival to Intel-based netbooks, smartbooks promise all-day battery life together with full wireless connectivity and HD media playback with HDMI connectivity.

After unhappy netbook users, there's place for happy smartbook users

The Linux segment is far from dead -- it's just getting started. But that's technically a "smartbook"..

Apple Smartbook In The Pipeline Or Is It iPhone 4G ?

Wireless patent

According to some reports about new Apple granted patents, there's got to be something at Apple about unknown wireless electronic device:

The twist however, is that the patent is about a hybrid antenna consisting of one antenna for Wi-Fi/Bluetooth and the other for 3G data communications. When combined within the framework of a subnotebook that could run software such as an internet browser, voice-over-internet-protocol (VOIP) telephone call applications, email applications and media playback applications, we are then presented with the classic definition of what a smartbook is.

Chat With Automatic Translation In 45 Languages

Google tech solved century-long problem. Tower of Babel doesn't exist anymore.



I like magic-like web services. BabelWith.me is certanly one of those. Just imagine having one of those pocket devices with something similar ( software ) just audio-based. Truly global !

BabelWith.Me is a new service which creates disposable chat rooms where you can have quick conversations. However, unlike many other disposable chatroom creators, it not only creates a disposable chatroom but also lets you chat with people knowing language other than yours by automagically translating your conversations into over 45 languages as per your selection.

Smartbooks are coming

Franken products showcased at Computex fair

Very well written and informative article about recent Computex fair in Taiwan.
So much new products are coming on the table. Many of them are so called Franken products and the trend is divergence.
Some points to highlight:

A small laptop with an Intel chip is normally called a netbook. But a netbook with a cellphone chip is called a smartbook, according to some companies

But based on what’s coming soon to a store near you, it seems that “divergence” may be the more apt moniker. There is now a quasi-laptop for just about every need and want.

Roger L. Kay, one of the most prominent analysts of the PC industry, described the new generation of machines as “Franken-products,” a reference to the monster cobbled together from various parts.

Globetrotter mind

On the go

My recent ( last few months) VR tours around the World. Recent destination were:

Toronto, Canada
Munich, Bavaria
New York, NYC
Philadelphia, PA
Birmingham, Alabama
Singapore, Asia

There's a lot of tweets about my impressions and thoughts when I was traveling and discovering these cities.

Palm Pre - Day 1

The New New Email

Real-time email and search

Google Wave: Re-inventing e-mail.

People behind Google Maps are doing it. Application is open source.

He proposed this thing called “hosted conversations” (this is what we call waves now). He listed them in a big series of benefits over existing systems. The thing that caught me was with these hosted conversations, you could do both email type conversations and instant messaging type conversations, in the same tool.

A core part of the product is the “liveness.” And you can see what people are doing all the time. Waves become active and unread and pop-up in your search panel all the time, and you need to learn when that’s useful for people and when it’s not, and how to present information to them in a way that’s useful and so they know what’s important and what to deal with

South Korea Mobile

Charging your mobile phone bill

New York Times: All things mobile in South Korea.

Each month last year, four million South Koreans bought music, videos, ring tones, online game subscriptions and articles from newspaper archives and other online items and charged them to their mobile phone bills, without going through any bank or credit card. The amount totaled 1.7 trillion won, or $1.4 billion at current exchange rates, last year. South Koreans have done this since 2000.

Weekend video

Biz Stone's story about Twitter and micro status networks

Eric Ries : The lean startup

Nokia Ovi Maps

News from Where 2.0 conference

Nokia: Ovi Maps API

With the introduction of the Ovi Maps Player API developers can bring Ovi Maps to their websites, complete with cutting edge features such as 3D view, satellite and terrain views and customizable visuals. The Ovi Maps Player can also be mashed up with content from other services, such as the terrific content from the Associated Press.

Find and forget

Who wants to know or own my place under the sun ?

Where 2.0 conference presents leading trends about location aware tech.
Here are some interesting links spotted in my gReader about this topic:

* Yahoo Placemaker

* Google Maps API data

* Location data and privacy

* Day 1 and ignation

Non Disclosure AgreemenT - Parking Access

Publish at Scribd or explore others: Business & Law Law & Government Finance Law

4 shorts

Gizmodo: Comparison of all the smartphone app stores

Yahoo Mobile: Abandons BB app. Focus on iPhone

El Reg: Second-generation of BlackBerry Storm with pictures

Prototype: Good looking Android phones could change the game. Design please.

Guess game

Guess what ?

/**
* Table Definition for foreign_service
*/
require_once INSTALLDIR.'/classes/Memcached_DataObject.php';

class Foreign_service extends Memcached_DataObject
{
###START_AUTOCODE
/* the code below is auto generated do not remove the above tag */

public $__table = 'foreign_service'; // table name
public $id; // int(4) primary_key not_null
public $name; // varchar(32) unique_key not_null
public $description; // varchar(255)
public $created; // datetime() not_null
public $modified; // timestamp() not_null default_CURRENT_TIMESTAMP

/* Static get */
function staticGet($k,$v=null)
{ return Memcached_DataObject::staticGet('Foreign_service',$k,$v); }

/* the code above is auto generated do not remove the tag below */
###END_AUTOCODE
}

Does WolframAlpha knows more or just crunches numbers better ?

The first search engine calculator.
Could WolframAlpha be important as Google ? Overhyped ? Tuning to electronic brain ?



Champaign, Illinois, USA - Computational knowledge engine sounds bold and geeky. Are we talking about Web Service or desktop PC program ?
Are you willing to change your habit ?

But is it magic or too much mathematics ? We'll see. Wolfram Alpa sells the image of something important in the web age 2009 and anticipation of it is dosed in a clever manner ( blog, webcast, newsletter, email invitation, FB group, twitter, Youtube channel, screeencast ).

Google is boring, though. Many people are waiting for '' wow effect '' in web search.
Google is God.

First thing, domain name. WoframAlpha.com is too long. Alpha totally unnecessary.

Wolfram comes from founder's name. Capitalism tells us this is wise move since people tend to care much more about the products and company when they use their names directly.

Wolfram Alpha itself is limited liability company not corporation. Wolfram Research Inc. is a company that develops Mathematics software , a computation solution for many industries.

Wolfram search engine has academics background.
Stephen Wolfram is founder - british physicist and mathematician. He thinks knowledge should be extracted from the Web in an easy-to-use interface.
He claims The Wolfram|Alpha engine differs from traditional search engines in that it does not simply return a list of results based on a query, but instead computes an answer.

Doug Lenat was impressed.

According to public information, there are no investors in the company as of today.

New York Times described search engine .

While search engines like Google, by and large, find things that already exist on the Internet—Web sites, photos, videos, blogs—Wolfram|Alpha answers questions, often by doing complex, and new computations.”

But how to get started searching ? What's ahead after homepage ? There are screenshots about this. Looks like you need to go deeper and refine your search. Maybe this data and answers are powerful indeed, but is this information layer usable and easy to navigate ?

More questions pop up. Is this search engine for consumer market or power users ? For serious researchers only ?

There are 150 people in the launch team and huge cluster of computers ready to go live and load all those queries. Everything sounds very ambitious.

Math to rule or to kill ? That is a question now. May 18th is the only way to know this. Countdown begins for launch of this ''rich search engine'' :))

Who knows the answer ? Machine or human ?
It certainly isn't replacement for Google. Better at numbers, but worse at words.
Here's a screencast.

Bonus link:
John Dvorak's second opinion
What's Google worried about ? No click-throughs as before...

TERM SHEET NIRVANA

Term Sheet

Publish at Scribd or explore others: Business & Law Term Sheet venture capital

4 shorts

Very sober article about unmaintained iPhone apps and slowdown in development:

Developers may depend on static libraries for which they don't have source code. This prevents them from rebuilding their applications using the 3.0 SDK. According to Snyder, this "effectively denies them the ability to take advantage of the new 3.0 APIs, and possibly permanently limits the lifetime of their app." Fortunately, he points out, most static libraries in use are either distributed with source or are maintained by companies like AdMob who very much want to keep them up to date.

This introduces a brand new puzzle into the iPhone development equation. Business plans that were predicated on getting applications ready for the 3.0 launch, whenever that should happen, must now start building 3.0 compatibility into their 2.x products. If a company wants to release a bug fix or offer any updated features over the next few months, they'll need to task their engineers with a whole new development effort. There's no way to keep programming for 2.x until 3.0 debuts.

Strategy Analytics: 900 % growth for Android phones in 2009. iPhone's growth 79 %. Still, I can't grasp how Google benefits directly from Android...

“Android has fast been winning healthy support among operators, vendors and developers. A relatively low-cost licensing model, its semi-open-source structure and Google’s support for cloud services have encouraged companies such as HTC, Motorola, Samsung, T Mobile, Vodafone and others to support the Android operating system. Android is now in a good position to become a top-tier player in smartphones over the next two to three years.”

How netbook revolution looks like ?

Whatever else netbooks bring to the table, the category's strongest selling point has been its low cost. Where once speed was everything, today's recession-rattled customers are willing to trade the power of full-fledged PCs for rock-bottom pricing.

Lenovo: What kind of future for netbooks ?
Touch, Win 7, bigger

So, there is still going to be a need for notebooks: some people will see netbooks as second devices, as companion devices – I just want to grab this when I go off to do whatever – but, other people are going to say, well, why own two things where I’ve got to worry about syncing them, where I need to make sure that the data is the same as on my other notebook. So, some people just don’t want that hassle either.

Bonus link:
Palm Foleo's rise from the death

WEEKEND IDEA

Google clone


I am in a search for Google clone hahahaha
Can someone recommend open source script for it ?

APP SPONSORSHIP

Great example of sponsorship in an iPhone app

Adidas creates free iPhone guide to Berlin's street art.

The app’s interactive elements including rating and commenting functionalities, and letting users upload their own snaps of new art, which keeps the map cutting-edge at no extra cost to Adidas. Berlin is currently the only city on the Urban Art Guide's map, but plans are underway to develop similar guides for other cities.

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