Motorola announces Q2 ICS updates for Droid Razr, Razr Maxx

E. Betters

Motorola just tweaked its Android Software Upgrade timetable for Ice Cream Sandwich updates, and it looks like both the United States-based Droid Razr and Razr Maxx are getting Android 4.0 in the second quarter.

The Xoom 3G model is also eyeing an ICS rollout in the same quarter, while the 8.2-inch and 10.1-inch Xyboard, Droid Bionic, and the Droid 4 are upgrading to the latest and current Android OS in Q3 2012. These devices were once listed under “Evaluation & Planning” when Motorola last altered the timetable in February.

It is worth noting the rollout dates could change once Google’s buyout of Motorola completes. Check out the manufacturer’s Motorola Android Software Upgrade News website for a full chart of slated ICS promotions.

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Google patent details Project Glass(es) gestures controlled with rings and tattoos

Jordan Kahn

At this point, at the very least, we already know that Google’s augmented reality glasses are capable of snapping a photo. However, we do not have much of an idea of how the UI might work other than what is in the initial concept video. Our sources previously indicated that Google was using a “head tilting-to scroll and click” for navigation of the user interface. Today, we get a look out how the company is experimenting with alternative methods of input for the glasses from a patent recently granted by the United States Patent & Trademark Office and detailed by PatentBolt.

According to the report, the highlight of the patent is how Google’s glasses could work with hand gestures. The patent described various hand-wearable markers, such as a ring, invisible tattoo, or a woman’s fingernail, which could be detected by the glasses’ IR camera, to “track position and motion of the hand-wearable item within a FOV of the HMD.” In other words, the wearable marker, in whatever form factor, would allow the glasses to pick up hand gestures. The report also noted multiple markers could be used to perform complex gestures involving several fingers or both hands:
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Google reinvents search—again—with Knowledge Graph (Video)

E. Betters

Google just made searching the Internet much more tailored—again—by announcing its new Knowledge Graph that identifies the relationship between words in a query.

In a massive blog post on the official Google Blog, Google’s Senior Vice President of Engineering Amit Singhal announced the new feature, while explaining search has historically been about matching keywords to queries, but that is not the ideal approach in the modern era of search.

According to the Singal:

  • “Take a query like [taj mahal]. For more than four decades, search has essentially been about matching keywords to queries. To a search engine the words [taj mahal] have been just that—two words.
  • But we all know that [taj mahal] has a much richer meaning. You might think of one of the world’s most beautiful monuments, or a Grammy Award-winning musician, or possibly even a casino in Atlantic City, NJ. Or, depending on when you last ate, the nearest Indian restaurant. It’s why we’ve been working on an intelligent model—in geek-speak, a “graph”—that understands real-world entities and their relationships to one another: things, not strings.

The SVP further described how the Knowledge Graph helps Google decipher ambiguous language. The feature’s methodology determines whether a user meant Taj Mahal the monument or Taj Mahal the musician when searching “Taj Mahal,” and then it displays a more narrowed list of search results.

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Google exec slams Facebook’s advertising method after GM pulls $10M ads

E. Betters

Google’s product leader for display ads business, Jason Bigler, took to Twitter yesterday to announce his not-so shocked reaction over General Motors, ya know—the nation’s third-biggest advertiser, slashing its $10 million Facebook campaign budget to zilch.

The Wall Street Journal’s Dennis K. Berman told the world via the micro-blogging service that GM pulled its $10 million advertising campaign from Facebook because “the ads didn’t work.” Bigler obviously agreed with the reporter’s sentiments.

Google’s ad boss has a reason to jump on the Facebook-bashing bandwagon, though. After all, his company operates its own social network that directly competes with Mark Zuckerberg’s widely-popular website. However, amid the Twitter trash-talk, there just might be some actual truths to Facebook’s potentially flawed campaign techniques when compared to Google’s advertising methods.

According to Business Insider:

Google’s perfect online ad product is the search ad. Search ads are perfect because the people paying for the ads know that the people looking at the ads want to see them. Consumers go on to Google and search for products or information about products, and Google shows them ads from the company that makes that product (and ads from its competitors).  There is no guesswork in the targeting of Google ads. The same cannot be said for Facebook ads. Facebook ads are targeted the old-fashioned way.

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Samsung loses $10B market value due to Apple order rumor

E. Betters

Samsung’s shares dipped more than 6 percent yesterday, erasing $10 billion from the manufacturer’s market value, due to a rumor that claimed Apple ordered large amounts of chips with rebounding Japanese chipmaker Elpida.

According to Reuters, Taiwan tech website DigiTimes reported that the Cupertino, Calif.-based Company requested huge orders for dynamic random access memory chips with Elpida’s Hiroshima, Japan plant. Unnamed industry sources said the order fastened about 50 percent of the factory’s total chip production.

Samsung is the world’s foremost DRAM manufacturer, but its shares subsequently fell 6.2-percent to around $1,100 USD after the piping hot rumor circulated the blogosphere. The abrupt plunge is the stock’s 9-week low and sharpest daily fall in almost four years. SK Hynix is the second-largest memory chipmaker after Samsung, and its shares closed at 9 percent, which is a 20-week low and steepest slump in nine months.

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LG flaunts Optimus UI 3.0, an ‘unobtrusive and simple’ overlay for ICS devices (Photos)

E. Betters

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LG announced this morning that it developed a new LG Optimus 3.0 overlay.

The press release claimed Optimus UI 3.0 is “unobtrusive and simple” to use, and its primary design function has speed in mind. For example, a new memo function called “Quick Memo” allows users to jot notes on the screen in a “more convenient” method, and then users can share the scribblings through text messages, email, or social networks.

“With smartphone hardware becoming more and more similar, it’s important for manufacturers to differentiate their products from the competition through the user interface,” said President and CEO of LG Electronics Mobile Communications Company Dr. Jong-seok Park in the presser.

Other features include: an unlock function that allows users to drag anywhere on the screen; a preset Pattern Lock that enables the most frequently used function to automatically open; an easier method for organizing the primary applications, a new Voice Shutter for capturing images through voice commands; a camera feature for shooting the best picture within multiple images; an Icon Customizer that allows users to set their own images as icons and shortcut; and a Download category for the main menu.

The Optimus UI 3.0 is initially slated for Ice Cream Sandwich devices, because it debut on the LG Optimus LTE II that unveiling this week in Korea, and then it will roll out to the LG Optimus 4X HD in June.

LG’s full press release is below.

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