‘Alfred’ local recommendations app gets redesigned for Android launch

Jordan Kahn

Not to be confused with the Mac OS application launcher utility of the same name, Alfred is a new local recommendations Android app from startup Clever Sense. Previously only available to iPhone users, the app was able to grab 20,000 users in two weeks during a trial run in July and has been praised for its personalized, context-aware suggestions generated by their proprietary “Serendipity Engine”. Not only is the app available in the Android Market right now, but it’s also been given a complete redesign and new features specific to Android users.

The goal of personal assistant apps of any kind is to learn what the user wants, and Alfred is no different. That’s why it starts with a quiz to better train the recommendation engine. Recommendations for restaurants, nightlife, and other local events are automatically aggregated based on your personal preferences, and maps with directions, ratings, and sharing features are built-in.

The company’s CEO, Babak Pahlavan, explained to Appolicious how the Serendipity Engine works:
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DigiTimes: Barnes & Noble to ship one million Nook Tablets

Jordan Kahn

When Barnes & Noble unveiled the new Android-powered Nook Tablet, it was clear it would be a Kindle Fire competitor and not necessarily compete in the broader tablet market. Well we already learned earlier this month that Amazon is set to ship around four million units by the end of 2011, but despite that the Nook Tablet is also posting strong numbers with DigiTimes reporting the company has shipped a million units since launch.

Barnes & Noble should have so far taken delivery of one million units of Nook Tablet PCs from OEM production partners… The market had originally expected Barnes & Noble to pull in orders for 800,000 Nook Tablet PCs before year-end 2011, indicated the sources, adding that the increased orders from Barnes & Noble has strengthened Inventec’s position in the OEM tablet PC segment.

At the beginning of December, research firm IHS iSuppli expected Amazon to take estimated 13.8 perfect share of the global tablet market. At that time, the report had Barnes & Noble at 4.7 percent of the market in comparison to Amazon’s 13.8%. These numbers were of course before we learned the Kindle Fire’s initial shipment numbers today. DigiTimes contributes the increased shipments due to strong sales of the Kindle Fire during the Thanksgiving shopping holiday and in anticipation of the upcoming Christmas holidays. Barnes & Noble could potentially begin to close the gap depending on how it performs against the Kindle Fire in the coming weeks.
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Samsung’s Galaxy Tab 10.1 goes on pre-sale in Australia as High Court slays Apple in tablet war

9to5 Staff

Today is a bad day for Apple’s legal sharks. First Motorola Mobility scores a ruling in Germany which has paved the way for a Europe-wide injunction on sales of Apple’s iOS devices and now High Court in Australia denies Apple’s request to appeal against an earlier decision which overturned the ban on Galaxy Tab 10.1 sales in Australia.

Put simply, the country’s highest-level legal instance has ruled that no, Samsung’s tablet does not “slavishly copy” Apple’s iPad, as the Mac maker argues in court documents. The Federal Court honored Apple’s recent request that its injunction against the Samsung tablet remain in effect until today at 4pm in order to allow Apple time to prepare an appeal. According to the Sidney Morning Herald, Tyler McGee, vice-president of telecommunications for Samsung Australia, said customers in Australia will be able to pick up the Galaxy Tab 10.1 tablet “towards the latter part of next week”. Also…

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Patent wars: Motorola wins European sales injunction on Apple’s iOS devices

9to5 Staff

Motorola Mobility this morning scored a major win in Germany as the Mannheim Regional Court ruled against Apple in one of the patent infringement lawsuit that the maker of the Razr phone filed against the Cupertino firm in April of this year. Interestingly, Motorola’s counsel Quinn Emanuel also beat Apple’s motion for a preliminary injunction against Samsung products in the United States and is representing Motorola in another Apple lawsuit involving iCloud.

As part of the ruling, first reported by the FOSS Patents blog, Motorola won an injunction against infringing Apple products, meaning the original iPhone, iPhone 3G, iPhone 3GS, iPhone 4, the original iPad 3G and iPad 2 3G. The court decision follows a default judgment against Apple last month, scheduled to be discussed again in early February.

The ruling involves the European Patent 1010336 (B1) – the European equivalent of the U.S. Patent No. 6,359,898 - which covers a “method for performing a countdown function during a mobile-originated transfer for a packet radio system” and was declared essential to the General Packet Radio Service (GPRS) standard. This is the first “substantive ruling” as the injunction is “preliminarily enforceable” against Ireland-based Apple Sales International in exchange for a bond unless Apple wins a stay, FOSS Patents explains. How can Apple fight back?

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Eric Schmidt distances Google from Carrier IQ, says it’s a keylogger

9to5 Staff

Google chairman Eric Schmidt, one of the highlights at an Internet freedom conference in the Dutch city of The Hague in the Netherlands, took swipe at Carrier IQ, likening the mobile analytics software to a keylogger:

It’s a key-logger, and it actually does keep your keystrokes, and we certainly don’t work with them and we certainly don’t support it.

Schmidt said the openness of the Android platform sometimes results with unwanted software wreaking havoc on the users’ handsets:

Android is an open platform, so it’s possible for people to build software that’s actually not very good for you, and this appears to be one.

Carrier IQ, a mobile analytics service, has turned into quite a controversy after security researcher Trevor Eckhart discovered that carrier Sprint worked with phone vendors to install the app secretly on cell phones. Its sole purpose is to gather data on the phone use, keeping track of everything you do on the handset – including keystrokes – without your consent. It’s the mobile industry’s worst kept secret, but the media outrage prompted many phone vendors and carriers to distance themselves from Carrier IQ.
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Square Enix announces Mini Ninjas as the first Native Client game for Chrome

9to5 Staff

Square Enix’s Mini Ninjas, a popular 2009 action-adventure game, is coming to the Chrome Web Store, the publisher announced yesterday. It will be the first game to utilize the Native Client SDK beta that Google released at Google I/O in May of this year as an open-source technology for running native compiled code in the browser. Chief executive officer of Square Enix Holdings, Yoichi Wada, says Native Client “enables the same consumer experience in the browser as in a native application”.

The game will require Chrome 17 Beta which will be available in the coming weeks (support for native code execution first appeared in Chrome 14). Mini Ninjas will be entering an open beta in December. The blurb promises console-quality gaming in the browser and invites fans of Mini Ninjas to “chart the journey of Hiro, the world’s smallest hero on his biggest quest, as he embarks on an epic quest to restore harmony to a world on the brink of chaos”. Square Enix promised more Chrome games utilizing native code execution “within the next year”.

SpaceTime Studios, the brains behind the popular MMO Pocket Legends, will be also taking advantage of Native Chrome Client to bring its MMO series to Chrome, allowing for cross-platform compatibility with their PC, Android and iOS releases.

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