"i-nteresting" via Robert Hammond
 VentureBeat | Amazon lets developers create apps for the Kindle book reader VentureBeat Responding to the popularity of apps, Amazon announced today that developers will be able to make content for the Kindle eBook reader. ... |
So, after much ado, rumor, hype and anticipation, Google has released information on its first foray into the cell phone hardware market — The Nexus One. This device promises to be a strong, though perhaps not revolutionary, addition to the line of Android-powered smartphones currently on the market.
Android, for those unaware, is Google’s smartphone operating system. Now approaching the release of version 2.1, this alternative to the more established mobile operating systems (Windows Mobile, iPhone, Palm, etc) is featured on more than 20 smartphone models. It features full phone, messaging, email and web browsing capabilities. In addition, users can watch videos from YouTube, use voice control to conduct searches on Google, or listen to complete libraries of music.
In the past, Google has remained in the role of software development. It has coordinated its development efforts with a number of hardware manufacturers, including notable names like HTC, a Taiwanese company who has released a number of Android-powered devices, and Motorola, who recently released Verizon’s flagship product, the “Droid”. That changed on January 5th, when Google announced the release of the Nexus One.
The Nexus One, manufactured by HTC, was developed under Google’s direction, and with access to Google’s latest Android 2.1 operating system. Though many had speculated that this “Google Phone” would be the first in a new class of data-only phones, using only a cellular or wi-fi data connection, not only for web browsing and email, but for regular phone calls as well, this is not to be the case with the Nexus One. Instead, the Nexus One remains a standard smartphone, intended to run on a variety of cellular networks.
Here are some of its technical specifications:
- Processor: Qualcomm “SnapDragon” QSD 8250 (running at 1GHz)
- Operating System: Android 2.1 (codename “Eclair”)
- Memory: 512MB Flash, 512MB RAM, 4GB microSD Card (expandable to 32GB microSD)
- Display: 3.7″ WVGA AMOLED touchscreen, 800×480 pixels, 100,000:1 contrast ratio
- Location and Orientation: AGPS, digital compass (magnetometer), accelerometer
- Size: 119 mm (4.68 in) x 59.8 mm (2.35 in) x 11.5 mm (0.45 in)
- Weight: 130 g (4.59 oz) with battery
- Battery: Removable 1400mAH battery, 7 hours talk time, 250 hours standby (on 3G networks)
- Camera: 5 megapixels, LED flash, autofocus, 2x digital zoom, location tagging from AGPS
- Video: 720×480 pixels @ 20fps or higher
- Audio: 3.5mm headphone jack, speaker, dual microphones (front and back)
- Input: Capacitive soft-keys (back, home, menu, search) with haptic feedback, clickable trackball, power button, volume control, light sensor, proximity sensor
- Cellular: UTMS, GSM, EDGE, HSDPA, 3G etc (not AT&T compatible)
- Wireless: Wi-Fi (802.11b/g/n), Bluetooth 2.1 + EDR, A2DP
The hardware in this device is mostly very standard, compared to other recent Android devices like the Motorola Droid. Personally, I would have expected to see more for the very first phone being sold by Google. Nevertheless, there are a few noteworthy improvements.
Noise Reduction: The Nexus One features two input microphones, one on the front of the device (as is common), and another on the back. The rear one will be used to analyze the ambient sound in the room, allowing Android to generate an inverse sound to cancel that noise. This has not, to my knowledge, been found on any previous phone model.
Processor: The 1GHz SnapDragon CPU is one of the most powerful we’ve seen in a smartphone to date. This should allow the Nexus One to do more CPU-intensive things (including support for Adobe Flash).
Voice Input…Everywhere: The Nexus One is the first device to feature Android 2.1. One of the most notable feature improvements is that you can now use speech recognition as an input method on any text field. This means you’ll be able to input contact information, respond to SMS, and possibly even compose emails by voice. This is a feature I’ve been waiting for since I bought my Droid, and while it will be rolled out to devices like the Droid and Droid Eris over the next few months, the Nexus One has it right now.
Lack of a Sliding Keyboard: While many might call this a negative, I’ve found that keyboards on thin sliders like the Motorola Droid are just not good enough to use regularly. While my Samsung i760 had a very nice slide-out keyboard, it made the device much thicker — too thick for a modern slider. Google has opted to remove the keyboard, making the device lighter and thinner, and making the on-screen keyboard the only option for typing (and not a bad option at that).
Multiple Network Support: In addition to a model subsidized through T-Mobile, Google is also directly selling an unlocked model compatible with other GSM networks, and will be releasing a Verizon-friendly model soon.
In addition to the benefits, there are a few disadvantages this phone has.
Trackball: While most smartphones to date have relied on screen-swiping or button controls to scroll up or down a page of text, the Nexus One adds a trackball, allowing the users to navigate in that way. It’s apparently also clickable. I suppose time will tell whether or not this will be a preferred method of navigation, but personally, I’m going to label this as a rather useless addition to the device.
4GB microSD Card: With the iPhone 3GS at 16/32GB, and the Droid coming with 16GB pre-installed, the 4GB microSD card that comes with the Nexus One is just too small.
Price: $179 with the standard 2-year contract (data plan required), or $529 without. Given that the data plans are similarly priced to those on networks like AT&T and Verizon, the total cost of ownership of this phone with the contract is still very, very high. This, to me, provides little incentive to buy this model, since T-Mobile’s network provides far less coverage, and Verizon presently has the Motorola Droid available with similar features.
Overall, it looks like it’s a good phone, but it’s not the game-changer many hoped it might be. Will Google eventually do a data-only phone? I think so, but apparently they don’t feel the time is right, yet.
This post is part of Mashable’s Spark of Genius series, which highlights a unique feature of startups. If you would like to have your startup considered for inclusion, please see the details here. The series is made possible by Microsoft BizSpark.
Name: Pearltrees
Quick Pitch: Pearltrees is a new visual way to organize content on the Web and connecting people’s interests.
Genius Idea: How do you organize the web on the browser? Since the time of Netscape, we’ve been using bookmarks and a wide series of folders to manage our favorite websites and web pages. Perhaps in some instances you use something like Google Reader to organize your articles and favorite things on YouTube, but the result is the same: it’s a messy affair.
Pearltrees is nothing less than a reinvention of how we organize the web. The service provides a completely unique and visual experience to saving your favorite websites, organizing what you find interesting, and even seeing what others are saying about specific web destinations.
Signing up for Pearltrees is simple, but getting used to the interface and all of its features is not as easy. Once you add your personal information, you are presented with a display connecting you to a web of circles, which are called pearls. In this system, you add websites you find interesting (either manually, via a browser extension, or through bookmarklets) into your profile. You also have control over where the pearls are placed on the page.
Now for the organization part: you can create complex systems of pearls, known as pearltrees. These complex trees are like your bookmark folders and subfolders, but visually represented. If you create a pearl for YouTube, you could create a tree filled with nothing but your favorite YouTube videos. The same goes for articles or any other type of web content. You can collapse or expand trees at will.
Clicking on a pearl gives you a range of options that go beyond visiting your favorite website. It provides a preview of the page and offers options to share it via social media. The most unique aspects are the connections and discussions, however. You can see how others have organized any website within the pearltrees, along with their notes on that website. In a way, it’s like Delicious, but more in-depth and visually rich.
Pearltrees takes a time investment to make it useful. Once you’ve spent some time with it though, it’s easy to get addicted. It’s more intuitive than bookmarks and provides a social context comparable to Delicious. It’s still in Alpha too, meaning that you can expect it to evolve significantly as its team better understands what users want and need.
Spark of Genius Series Sponsored by Microsoft BizSpark
BizSpark is a startup program that gives you three-year access to the latest Microsoft development tools, as well as connecting you to a nationwide network of investors and incubators. There are no upfront costs, so if your business is privately owned, less than three years old, and generates less than U.S.$1 million in annual revenue, you can sign up today.
Entrepreneurs can take advantage of the Azure Services platform for their website hosting and storage needs. Microsoft recently announced the “new CloudApp()” contest – use the Azure Services Platform for hosting your .NET or PHP app, and you could be the lucky winner of a USD 5000* (please see website for official rules and guidelines).”
Reviews: Delicious, Google Reader, PHP, YouTube
Tags: bizspark, Pearltrees
Most e-patients go online to read about a health condition. But that seems almost passive compared to the way a small group of Internet-savvy people are connecting to get their health information.
About 20 percent of e-patients go to Internet and social-networking sites where they can talk to medical experts and other patients, says Susannah Fox, with the Pew Internet and American Life Project.
"They are posting their first-person accounts of treatments and side effects from medications," says Fox. "They are recording and posting those podcasts. They're tagging content. They are part of the conversation. And that, I think, is an indicator of where we could be going in terms of the future of participatory medicine."
Yesterday, at the ePatient Connections 2009 conference, I was a member of the Regulatory Panel that also included my friend Preeti Pinto, MS, MT (ASCP), Head of Medical Education and Regulatory Compliance at AstraZeneca, and Paul Loebach, Project Manager, DDMAC. I never met Loebach before, but I liked him even though he never fully revealed what he has been doing at DDMAC for the past 18 years.
During that panel discussion, Loebach informed the audience that it was too late to request a seat at the upcoming November FDA public hearing on social media. Over 800 people applied for seats, but the meeting room can only accommodate 350. Pharmaceutical Executive Magazine, for example, won't have a seat (see "Fear and Loathing in Washington, DC").
Someone in the audience asked Loebach and other panel members what their thoughts were regarding some best practices for using social media to get information out to consumers/patients. I would have responded by pointing out that one best practice for using social media was not to push info out to an audience, but to engage members of that audience in dialogue. But I let Loebach answer the question -- I'll have more to say about social media best practices in a follow-up post.
Loebach, speaking for himself and not DDMAC, suggested it was "too early" to offer advice and that DDMAC was "still fishing for information." He also said something I thought was revealing: ie, "we have ideas." Of course, by law, DDMAC has to solicit opinions of the public before it issues guidance and that's what the November hearing is about. "We still need to hear from everybody, because we're on the other side of the fence and we can't think of all the issues that you all will come up with and all the ways to use social media that you will come up with in the future. I know a lot of you in the audience feel that this hearing coming up in November is long overdue, but we're still too early in the learning curve to start giving advice on what will work and what won't."
This prompted me to ask Loebach: "Do you personally think the FDA will come out with some kind of guidelines relating to social media by the end of 2010?"
After a brief dramatic pause, Loebach responded "Yeah, probably that's a good estimate -- by the end of 2010. But if it happens earlier, even better," said Loebach hopefully.
This is as close as you're going to get for an official estimate of when FDA may publish social media guidelines. I happen to believe it is accurate not just because of what Loebach said, but because the FDA needs to prove that it's not your father's FDA. The new FDA leaders are younger than the previous leaders. They are smart people who believe in and have grown up using new media tools like social media. Besides, the FDA will lose tremendous face and credibility if, for the second time, they fail to act after calling a public hearing on the use of the Internet. This time they mean business.
In light of Apple’s announcement earlier this week that there have been 1.5 billion downloads of iPhone applications, it’s easy to forget that there are about a half dozen other mobile platforms looking to challenge the device’s dominance.
One of those, the Palm Pre, is boasting of early success today, reporting that 1.8 million applications have been downloaded from its App Catalog – a respectable number considering there are only a few dozen apps available and only a few hundred thousand devices in the hands of consumers.
Palm is now gearing up to expand its App Catalog, also announcing that its Mojo Software Development Kit is available to anyone that wants to develop apps for the device. Previously, the platform was only available to a limited set of developers.
While the dev platform opens today, the flow of new applications onto the device may still be slow. Although the company writes that “new applications are in the pipeline for the Palm App Catalog,” presumably from existing developers, the submission process won’t be opened to everyone until the fall. In other words, while thousands of developers might start building their apps today, they won’t be available for consumption for at least a few months.
Palm Pre’s lack of apps has been a common criticism of the device, but it’s worth noting that the vast majority of iPhone’s 65,000+ applications have very little traction. As we recently reported, 81 percent of iPhone apps have less than 10,000 users. Palm, on the other hand, would seem to be seeing fairly good uptake for the few apps it does have. That said, Apple’s platform – with more than 40 million users – will remain most attractive until Palm (and others) are able to sell a lot more devices.
Tags: iphone, Mobile 2.0, Palm Pre
