Earlier this month, a U.S. District Judge in California ordered Google Chairman Eric Schmidt, Apple CEO Tim Cook, and others to give depositions in an ongoing private lawsuit. Employees brought on the private lawsuit alleging “no-poach” agreements the companies entered would drive down wages. Today, new details have emerged after a request to keep court documents secrets was denied by U.S. District Judge Lucy Koh.
While emails exchanged between Steve Jobs and former Palm CEO Ed Colligan have been the focus on the documents, The Verge also pointed us to emails exchange between Jobs and Google execs. Below we have an email form Jobs to Schmidt asking to put a stop to Google recruiting employees from its iPod team, as well as one where Schmidt discussed not wanting to create a paper trail: Read more
The August issue of Vanity Fair fully dissects “How Microsoft Lost Its Mojo,” but it also gives an interesting glimpse at how the once-reigning tech company foolishly underestimated Google.
The actual article is not online, but BetaBeat obtained a physical copy and found a little nugget buried inside that describes chief executive Steve Ballmer going on a rampage in 2004. After allegedly throwing a chair, the CEO had this to scream say about an engineer who left Microsoft for Google:
“Fucking Eric Schmidt is a fucking pussy!” Ballmer yelled, according to the court document. “I’m going to fucking bury that guy! I have done it before and I will do it again. I’m going to fucking kill Google.”
Ballmer is notorious for his emotional antics and miscalculated quotes about the competition. The video atop is a perfect demonstration of Ballmer going, well, crazy. Meanwhile, the video below shows the executive laughing about the iPhone in 2007, while dismissing its ability to handle business-oriented tasks due to its lack of a tangible keyboard.
“The size of the worldwide Android audience and lack of current speaker options gives us a significant opportunity to introduce our products to a new group of consumers,” announced iHome’s Director of Marketing Evan Stein in a press release. ”Our new SmartDesign products maintain the high quality and innovation that is synonymous with iHome.”
First up is the iC50 for Android smartphones. It is a $59.99 alarm/radio clock with a microUSB charging cable, stereo audio cable, and 3.5 mm plug:
Wake and sleep to radio (you can also wake to tone). Reson8® speaker chambers and EXB bass enhancement provide great sound that’s perfect for your music, games or apps. Works with iHome Sleep app (free download) to wake and sleep to your favorite music and advanced custom alarms. SmartSlide™ dock with custom micro USB cable for smartphone charging regardless of its charging port location/orientation. Also enjoy FM radio with digital tuning. A microUSB charging cable and stereo audio cable with 3.5 mm plug are included.
I am an Apple devotee, through and through, so much so that I have not even bothered to look elsewhere to satisfy my tech-junkie needs—and yes, that means I have never played with an Android device in my entire life.
Enter the Samsung Galaxy Player 3.6. This Gingerbread-powered media player landed in my lap earlier this week and taunted something more. Unfortunately, due to my inexperience with Android devices, I am left to compare this offering to the next best thing in my mind: the fourth-generation iPod Touch. This should not be a problem, however, as both devices compete in the same product category.
Galaxy Players 4.0 and 5.0 released in 2011 for $229 and $269, respectively, and this week the South Korean-based firm added to the PMP lineup with its Galaxy Player 3.6 for about $100 less at $150. The price is definitely more attractive, but are users just getting what they paid for? Read more to find out.
The Samsung Galaxy 5 player is probably exactly what you think it is: a big-ass Galaxy S phone without the “phone part”. That is, it doesn’t have a 3G radio for voice and data, instead relying on Wifi to connect to the Internet. If you are like me, however, you spend 90+ percent of your day around Wifi and during that 90% of the time, it is as good as any 3G or 4G mobile device – the reviewers agree.
As you’d expect, the screen is huge, especially compared to typical phones. I have a white one and it looks like a comically large white iPhone 3G from afar. The screen also has the standard Samsung 480×800 pixel count, though with the larger screen the fonts aren’t as crisp as a 4-incher. Having gotten my hands on the Samsung Galaxy Note and Galaxy Nexus, I can tell you that this screen isn’t even close to as crisp. But that doesn’t mean it isn’t beautiful, especially for playing Netflix or Youtube content.
This is generally the first Android device that goes up against Apple’s iPod Touch franchise and I believe it does have some compelling differentiators, besides the much larger, but not “Retina crisp” display. I’ll break these down below:
The 3MP backside Camera is actually good for taking pictures. If you’ve tried to take a picture with the iPod Touch’s backside camera, you know it is barely passable. Samsung’s on the other hand takes decent pictures – think iPhone 3GS-type quality. It also has a Flash for those times you are in the dark and want to cast a flashlight type shadow on your subject.
Removable Storage: The Galaxy Player has a Micro SD card slot that instantly bumps your Player capacity up to 40GB with $40 worth of card. With an iPod, that costs $100. It’s also nice for quickly moving storage around.
Sound: The Galaxy Player stereo speakers blows away the iPod touch mono. To make matters better/worse, Samsung includes a very nice pair of in-ear headphones with the Player, while Apple’s White earbuds are…what they are.
FM Radio: The Galaxy Player has an FM Radio which is nice when you run out of Wifi. FM Radio is also helpful if there is an emergency but it only annoyingly works with headphones in.
GPS: If you are navigating off of a 3G hotspot or some cached maps, you’ll get a way better location than with just Wifi triangulation.
Google Voice plus Skype (or other VoIP app) turns this into a great phone. Samsung left the mic and sfrom speaker in the right spots so it makes a fantastic, if not a little large, phone.
Price. Street Price of $199 and $239 for the 4 inch screen and 5 inch screen Player varieties respectively compare well to Apple’s iPods. When considering bumping up to larger capacities is just a MicroSD card away, it is that much more compelling an offer. Read more
The fine folks over at iFixit have done their honorary teardown of the Kindle Fire, which just became available today. The teardown revealed the device is much easier to open than Apple’s iPad and iPod. Other things to note are its huge battery and shiny metal plates on the back case that help provide protection for the internal components, as well as heat sinking and EMI shielding. Head on over to iFixit for all of the technical details.
Interested in our first thoughts on the $199 Fire? Check them out here. A few more teardown photos after the break:
