Just as rumors suggested, it boasts built-in GPS for geo-tagging, a 10X optical zoom lens, 16-megapixel BSI CMOS sensor, 3.5-inch touchscreen display, 1080p video capture, 4GB of internal storage, and Android 2.3 Gingerbread with Google Play access.
“The S800c establishes a new line in the COOLPIX S series powered by Android with built-in Wi-Fi compatibility for operation similar to that of a smartphone and wireless Internet connection,” announced Nikon on its website. “The S800c fulfills Nikon’s latest proposal for new ways to use digital cameras–Capture, View, Connect, Enjoy–all in a single, compact body.”
The S800c will be available in September in both white and black versions for a suggested retail price of $349.95.
It has been less than a month since Google launched its Fiber Internet and TV service in Kansas City, Kan., and new reports indicate Time Warner Cable is ramping up hiring in the city.
The company’s economic impact in the Kansas City metro area tops $525 million annually and is expected to increase with the new positions, Time Warner Cable said in a release.
The effort to ramp up the local headcount comes a few weeks after Google Fiber unveiled details for its ultra-fast Internet-based television service.
Google recently announced new premium content partners, including Showtime.
Time Warner Cable, which is one of the nation’s leading cable providers, currently offers Showtime, as well as HBO, Starz, and more, as part of its premium channel packages. The real rivalry between Google and Time Warner Cable, however, is likely over the the one-gigabit per second Internet service.
According to Google’s Fiber pre-registration goal page, the Internet giant is quickly taking over neighborhoods one-by-one. This is likely because Google offers Kansas City residents the speedy service for free…for seven years. Folks simply need to pay a one-time $300 installation fee.
Time Warner Cable is clearly facing stiff competition, so it is not surprising the local office plans to add more customer service and sales positions to its roster. It certainly could use all the help it can get.
GigaOm revealed in early July that Time Warner Cable advertised for Kansas City residents to submit tips on Google’s development in the area. A circulated poster (below), which offered $50 for bits of information, suggested the cable company viewed Google as a real threat even before Fiber unveiled.
We reported in June that Google Offers is sponsoring free Wi-Fi in New York City until September, and now the discounted service will extend to more nationwide locations.
The sponsorship is possible through an agreement with Boingo Wireless. New Yorkers and tourists currently access free Internet at six subway stations and over 200 Boingo hotzones in the borough of Manhattan due to the partnership. The free Wi-Fi coverage, which even reaches below street level, will end Sept. 7. However, another 24 locations across the country will soon have access to the wide-reaching, complimentary service.
Starting today, the sponsored Wi-Fi will cover eight malls and 16 airports throughout New York, Chicago, Houston, Los Angeles, Washington, D.C., Seattle, and other major cities. Google Offers, which is an infant deal-of-the-day website piping localized savings to huge geographic markets in the U.S., is the first sponsor of Boingo Wi-Fi in New York subway stations.
The full press release is below (via BusinessWire):
Hollywood-slash-Renaissance man James Franco appears in Samsung’s latest Galaxy Note 10.1 advertisement as “the ultimate multitasker.”
The nearly three-minute long commercial features Franco strolling throughout a house, with tablet in-hand; helping various extras on the set complete tasks. It furthers shows the actor bragging about his long list of accomplishments, including directing this very video, while he alludes to the Galaxy Note 10.1 as helping him get it all done.
For Franco’s sake, lets hope he did not write the script too. Check it out above.
NikonRumors just posted leaked press shots of the Android-based Coolpix “s800c” camera.
The pictures reveal a touchscreen menu on the backside, apparently running a Gingerbread flavor, with apps for a camera, email, browser, music, etc. Additional specs labeled on the front of the camera detail a “12X Wide Optical Zoom ED VR” in HD and a 4.5-54.0mm stock lens.
NikonRumors, which has a decent track record in scooping Nikon, said the official announcement will occur “on or around” Aug. 22. The website first discovered the s800c in a filling with the Indonesian Communication Agency, and it originally noted the camera touts a 3.5-inch OLED screen, Android 2.3 with Google Play apps, and built-in GPS and Wi-Fi.
The 4-inch handset boasts a WVGA 480-by-800 display and a 5-megapixel rear-shooting camera, but users who travel often or juggle multiple phones will mostly love its ability to toggle SIM cards. The dual-SIM functionality essentially lets users connect two phone numbers to a single phone, while the “Always on” feature allows them to receive calls on one SIM number while answering a call from the other line. The Galaxy S Duos further supports various billing plans for each SIM.
A few of the additional specs mentioned in the press release include “rounded edges and smooth ceramic-like finish,” 1GHz processor, 1500mAh battery, and 4GB of on-board storage. The Galaxy S Duos is eyeing a September launch starting in Europe with a rollout scheduled for other territories, and The Verge noted an LTE version, with possibly different internal specs, is coming down the pipeline.
Let’s hope the Galaxy S Duos marks an industry-wide transition to multi-SIM smartphones. It would certainly be interesting to see all the carriers simultaneously fight for usage on a single device.
The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office published a patent application from Google that illustrates the search giant is developing technology for a computing device, such a laptop, that will boast dual cameras with 3D video conferencing as the main function.
Google’s specific example goes like this: the computing notebook with the dual cameras could be used by a first user to produce a stereoscopic image of, for example, the first user during a video conference session when while in the notebook’s stereoscopic mode. In some instances, the stereoscopic image could be displayed locally and/or sent to a remote computing device via the video conference session.
If a second user joins the video conferencing session in the same room as the first user, the notebook could be changed from a stereoscopic mode to that of a multi-image mode so that separate images of the first user and the second user could be used during the video conferencing session.
It is worth noting stereoscopy is otherwise known as 3D imaging. Most stereoscopic techniques present two offset images independently to the left and right eye of the viewer, but the brain combines them to give the perception of 3D depth.
Patent Bolt further contextualized the multi-image mode:
In Google’s example of this invention used in a video conferencing context, two people in one office could be both using the same notebook during the conference for the sake of simple communications. They could be sitting across the table from each other with one camera facing one participant and the other camera pointed to the back of the notebook to view the second participant. The party on the other end of the conference would simply see two side-by-side boxes on their screen as if the individuals were actually sitting side by side. For home users it could be handy application when there’s only one household notebook.
Get the full report and more images at Patent Bolt.
Leaked shots of the Samsung Galaxy Note 2 have surfaced online just weeks ahead of its launch event in Germany.
A “tipster” sent KnowYourMobile a blurry image of a device this morning that looks akin to other Samsung products in the Galaxy line. Sources told the publication it is the Galaxy Note 2, and it will boast a quad-core processor, 2GB of RAM, Samsung’s S-Pen tech, and Android Jelly Bean.
Phandroid posted a clearer press shot of the Galaxy Note 2 that aggregated on Twitter this afternoon. The picture shows the front and back of the device with the camera and speaker positioned similar to the Galaxy S III. It also houses a slot for S-Pen.
Nowhereelse rounded the recent Galaxy Note 2 leaks with a photo of a 5.5-inch front panel. Samsung confirmed it would launch its hotly awaited phablet at IFA on Aug. 29 with a bigger screen than the predecessor.
It must be a cold day in Hell. Google and Samsung are consorting with Apple, LG Electronics, and various ventures and firms to bid as a group on Kodak’s intellectual property.
Kodak filed for bankruptcy protection in January, according to The Wall Street Journal, and it is looking to auction its patents to raise money for surviving a Chapter 11 court protection. Kodak could barter all 1,100 digital photography-based patents or end the auction without a deal, as the company announced it would name the winning bidders on Monday but eventually pushed the deadline upon talking with creditors.
Negotiations and the bidding group’s composition are fluid, the people said. If the consortium reaches a deal to buy some or all of Kodak’s patents, they would essentially be kept out of any one company’s hands and could prevent consortium members from using them in litigation against each other. A deal, however, could also attract attention from federal antitrust regulators.
A deal for the entire portfolio—one of many options under discussion— could fetch more than $500 million based on recent negotiations, people familiar with the process said. That is well above opening bids when the auction started last week, but far below the $2.2 billion to $2.6 billion Kodak at one point said the patents could be worth.
In a statement Thursday, Kodak said discussions with buyers are active and that it isn’t ready to announce a result. The company added that it might decline to sell some or all of the patents, depending on how the auction progresses.
Photography and cameras are obviously a main feature of mobile devices. Competitors in the tech arena have joined forces in the past to snatch up attractive patents, but The Wall Street Journal noted it is “unusual for them all to join the same camp.”
Patent law whiz Michael Carrier, of Rutgers University in Camden, said the companies would not suffer antitrust issues if the tech giants commit to licensing on reasonable rates. Otherwise, an action such as dividing the patents without sharing the rights to use them could likely meet legal trouble down the road.
Google’s Voice Search is now available in 42 languages in 46 countries.
The search giant added 13 new languages to its app; so over 100 million worldwide speakers can now use Voice Search. The new languages include, according to the official Google blog, Basque, Bulgarian, Catalan, European Portuguese, Finnish, Galician, Hungarian, Icelandic, Norwegian, Romanian, Serbian, Slovak, and Swedish.
“Each new language usually requires that we initially collect hundreds of thousands of utterances from volunteers and, although we’ve been working on speech recognition for several years, adding these new languages led our engineers and scientists to tackle some unique challenges,” explained Product Manager Bertrand Damiba in Google’s post.
This update is rolling out over the next week. Those with an Android 2.2 or later device can use Voice Search by way of a microphone icon on the Google Search widget from the homescreen. Otherwise, a user must install the Voice Search app from Google Play.
The folks at AndroidPolice are on a roll today, as they just discovered, after examining the new Google Play Store APK, that the revamped Android marketplace now takes advantage of “smart updates.”
The 300 KB APK code previously revealed a wishlist and gift cards coming down the pipeline, and now it shows incremental downloads are live in version 3.8.15 of the Play Store. Those who need to keep an eye on their data consumption will revel in the update, because it means they no longer have to re-download an entire APK to get the latest version. Hereafter—Android devices will only download the changes between versions.
The U.S. Patent and Trademark office just published a Google patent for “Speak to Tweet,” which is a service that allows users to communicate on Twitter by dialing an international phone number and then leaving a tweet by way of voice message. Google developed “Speak to Tweet” in response to the 2011 Egyptian revolution Internet shutdown.
In January 2011 Google acquired a small company called SayNow. Google, with the assistance of their newly acquired SayNow team worked night and day with Twitter so as to quickly develop a product called “Speak to Tweet.” The service was developed to help people stay connected in times when they were unable to find a viable Internet connection. The inspiration for this application was born during the Egyptian revolution. As a reaction to protests in Cairo, the Egyptian government shut down the Internet throughout that country on January 26, 2011. Technically, Speak to Tweet (or speak2tweet) is a communications service that allows users to leave a “tweet” on Twitter by calling a designated international phone number and leaving a voice message. Recently, the US Patent Office published the patent that’s behind the Speak to Tweet service.
Head of the Google Cultural Institute Steve Crossan originally filed the patent application in Q1 2012. Check it out here.
The Facebook-acquired, vintage photo-editing app Instagram is rolling out version 3.0 today for iOS and Android with a new Photo Map that highlights geo-tagged, filtered images.
“With every major release, we pick a theme – and for this one we’ve focused on the browsing experience. We’ve introduced a new and unique way to browse your photos and others’ photos on a map, which means you’re no longer constrained to browsing through page after page of photos,” announced Instagram on its official blog.
Once the update lands on the App Store and the Google Play Store, a Photo Map section will appear on all profiles. Instagram’s 80 million users can change between Grid and Chronological view modes and then zoom in and tap on photo stacks to navigate through all the geo-tagged images saved on an account. They can further delete unwanted pictures from their own stacks.
Additional user-interface refreshes include usernames now appearing in the app’s header, a multi-line caption box, and several performance enhancements to make the browsing experience, such as infinite scrolling in the feed and a new spam reporting system, more fluid and responsive.
“On newer devices, you should notice a marked improvement in speed while browsing. With that, we’ve introduced infinite scrolling in feeds so that you can quickly see more photos while browsing around the app. And finally, we’ve paid special attention to keeping Instagram a safe place. With improved reporting tools, users can now flag both photos and comments for review with ease,” Instagram explained.
The full change log:
– View your photos on a map (visit your profile and tap Photo Map to select which of your photos will be viewable on the map)
Google finally realized that online shopping is synonymous with gift cards and wishlists.
According to AndroidPolice, the Google Play Store is taking a much-needed clue from Apple and Amazon and readying a wishlist tool and physical gift cards for its revamped Android marketplace. The wishlist is where users essentially add content for purchasing later, while the redeemable Play Store cards allow users to pop in a code, earn a Play Store balance, and buy content without the use of a credit card.
AndroidPolice found evidence of these two functions after comparing a new Google Play Store v3.8.15 APK to the previous 3.7.15 version. The 300 KB code revealed new icons, layout and string resources, and an Android manifest that all pointed to a wishlist and gift cards coming down the Google Play pipeline.
Verizon Wireless’ 4G LTE network will blanket more than 75 percent of the United States population after it lights up 34 new markets and expands 38 other markets, bringing the carrier’s total U.S. LTE markets to 371, on Aug. 16.
Hot Springs, Ark.; Redding, Calif.; Valdosta and Waycross, Ga.; Centralia and Danville, Ill.; Parsons, Salina and Topeka, Kan.; Alexandria and Monroe, La.; Pittsfield, Mass.; Battle Creek and Muskegon, Mich.; Mankato and Worthington, Minn.; Joplin and Sedalia, Mo.; Bismarck, Grand Forks and Minot, N.D.; Chillicothe, Ohio; Reading, Pa.; Aberdeen, S.D.; Laredo, Odessa and Texarkana, Texas; Brattleboro and White River Junction, Vt.; Charlottesville, Va.; Longview, Wash.; and Eau Claire, La Crosse and Manitowoc, Wis.
Los Angeles and Santa Barbara/Santa Maria, Calif.; Orlando, Fla.; Macon/Warner Robins, Ga.; Bloomington, Champaign/Urbana, Decatur/Effingham and Springfield, Ill.; Elkhart, Ind.; Des Moines, Iowa City and Sioux City, Iowa; Dodge City, Garden City and Great Bend, Kan.; Lexington and Louisville, Ky.; New Orleans, La.; Boston, Mass.; Minneapolis/St. Paul, Minn.; Missoula, Mont.; Las Vegas, Nev.; Manchester/Nashua, N.H.; Las Cruces, N.M.; New York, N.Y.; Cincinnati, Ohio; Greenville/Spartanburg, S.C.; Sioux Falls, S.D.; Chattanooga, Tenn.; and Salt Lake City/Ogden, Utah; Roanoke, Va.; Charleston, W.Va.; and Green Bay, Wis. Additional areas include: Little Rock, Ark., expanding into Batesville, Ark.; Tallahassee, Fla., expanding into Thomasville, Ga.; Burley, Idaho, expanding into Twin Falls, Idaho; Chicago, Ill., expanding into DeKalb, Ill.; and Cedar City, Utah, expanding into St. George, Utah.
“Our 4G LTE network is currently in more markets than all other U.S. wireless providers combined, and our team is continuing to expand the network so that more customers across the nation can take advantage of 4G LTE speed and capabilities,” said Verizon Wireless’ Chief Technical Officer Nicola Palmer. “We are ahead of schedule with our 4G LTE market roll out and will provide 4G LTE network coverage to more than 400 markets in the near future.”
It looks like folks only in the most rural of areas will lack LTE after tomorrow’s massive rollout.
Google updated its Google+ for Android app today, and the most notable tweak allows users to join Hangouts on Air from their mobile devices.
That is not all: Teens can now create and join Hangouts from their mobile devices too. Apparently, they could not before, but Google now lets them take advantage of the social network’s premier video-chat feature on an Android-based smartphone or tablet.
Google — Left: Mobile map with all modes of public transit shown; Right: Transit Lines layer in Subway mode
Google Maps now offers schedules for over 1 million public transportation stops in nearly 500 cities worldwide, while its Android counterpart updated today to make the abundance of new transit data more convenient.
Christopher Van Der Westhuizen, a Google Maps software engineer, announced version 6.10 of the Google Maps for Android app on the Official Google Blog:
We’ve made some changes to the Transit Lines layer, so that you can select a specific mode of public transportation (train, bus, tram or subway) to display on the mobile map, hiding the other modes. This is helpful in areas where there is a tight concentration of several types of public transit.
Google offers a list of supported cities at its Transit page.
A friend of mine has tipped me to an anonymous set of FCC documents which were posted yesterday. They don’t show any useful detail, but they do lead somewhere interesting. Like Amazon’s past FCC submissions, this paperwork belongs to a new front company. This time around the company is Harpers LLC.
Hoffelder did not find any details in the FCC filing beyond the eReader’s label, but he reviewed the dimensions given and said it looked like a 9.7-inch or 10-inch tablet:
The general screen geometry is likely going to be 4:3 (like the iPad), and not widescreen like many Android tablets. And since some of the hidden parts of the FCC paperwork will be revealed in December, this device will clearly be launched this fall.
The original Kindle Fire is a version of Amazon’s popular Kindle eReader. It announced in September 2011 with a color 7-inch multi-touch display and a forked version of Google’s Android operating system.
The 10-inch tablet goes on sale Aug. 16, with the price tag starting at $499 for the 16GB model and $549 for 32GB. The hefty cost includes the S-Pen stylus, a 1280-by-800 TFT display, Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich with an expected Jelly Bean upgrade, a 1.4 GHz quad-core processor, 2GB of RAM, and a 5-megapixel rear-facing camera with an LED flash and autofocus, and a 1.9-megapixel front-facing camera. Oh, and the tablet supports 64GB memory cards, Wi-Fi, and Bluetooth 4.0.
A few of the primary features from the Galaxy S III will also ship including video pop-up play and preloaded apps like Netflix and Dropbox.
The Wall Street Journal just revealed a group of major U.S. retailers, dubbing themselves as the “Merchant Customer Exchange,” look to unveil a mobile payments network and app today that will directly rival Google Wallet and similar services.
The mobile payments arena is clouded with regulators, competitors, tech, and now a network that each aim to profit on the looming cash cow—even though it has yet to take root due to all the interference. Just last week, for instance, Electronic Transactions Association CEO Jason Oxman announced the newly formed Mobile Payments Committee that boasts representation from the four leading U.S. carriers.
The Merchant Customer Exchange, however, specifically wants to add a universal app to the ever-growing pile that will give Google Wallet, as well as carrier-led ISIS and mobile payments companies like PayPal and Square, a run for its money.
The Wall Street Journal first detailed the group’s origin in March. The specifics were brief—over a dozen retailers teaming to get a piece of the pie— but more information is now available. Walmart, Target, 7-11, Sunoco, Best Buy, CVS, Lowe’s, Sears, Royal Dutch Shell, Publix, etc., are just a few of the retailers, which eye combined sales of roughly $1 trillion annually, that want to pipe “deals” to their customers while investing in the mobile payments landscape.
It is worth mentioning that retailers can crop consumer data through the MCX app and network, which in turn could help them to better hone and target ads, but the app will also enable devices to “tap and pay” for purchases via a reader in stores.
“As merchants, no one understands our customers’ shopping and payment experience better than we do, and we’re confident that together we can develop a technology solution that makes that experience more engaging, convenient and efficient,” said Best Buy President of Financial Services Mark Williams in a statement.
Google is celebrating Julia Child’s 100th birthday today.
The American chef, author, and television personality died at the age of 91 on August 13, 2004, as first noted by SearchEngineLand, but she is notable for seamlessly bringing the art of French cuisine to the American home with her first —and massive—cookbook, “Mastering the Art of French Cooking”, and later through her television programs, such as “The French Chef”, which began airing in 1963.
Child is now a part of American and worldwide culture, as she is the subject of many films and parodies in television and radio skits, and she is very well known for her striking height and memorable voice, personality and appearance.
Microsoft updated SkyDrive today and teased a new SkyDrive app that allows users to access, upload and share from Android devices.
Today, as part of making sure SkyDrive is available to all Windows customers, we’re excited to announce that an official SkyDrive app for Android phones will be available in just a few weeks. The Android app is similar to our mobile apps for Windows Phone and iOS and allows you to browse your SkyDrive, upload files to SkyDrive, as well as share SkyDrive files with “Send a link.” You’ll also be able to open SkyDrive files from other apps, as well as upload, save, and share to SkyDrive from other apps.
SkyDrive is a Google Drive direct competitor and cloud storage service that can upload and sync files to the cloud. It further lets users access those files from a Web browser or a local device, and it offers 7 GB of free storage for new users with additional storage available for purchase.
User-interface screenshots for the SkyDrive for Android app are above.
Go to Microsoft’s Inside SkyDrive page for more information.
My, how time flies. It has been nearly seven years since Hurricane Katrina wreaked havoc on Louisiana, but a fresh look through Google’s Street View imagery shows New Orleans and the surrounding area has come a long way.
“The Street View imagery in Google Maps, which has just been updated today, more accurately reflects the major construction and renewal that’s underway,” announced New Orleans Mayor Mitch Landrieu on the official Google Lat Long blog.
The majority of American teens prefer YouTube to iTunes, radio, online radio, and CDs when it comes to finding and listening to music.
Approximately two-thirds of 18-and-younger U.S. teenagers, according to a “Music 360” survey from research firm Nielsen (via The Wall Street Journal), claimed they sidestepped other music-listening mediums for Google’s video-sharing platform.
YouTube snagged 64 percent of 13-to-17 year olds, while radio came in second at 56 percent. iTunes held 54 percent, with CDs and Pandora rounding the top five at 50- and- 35 percent respectively.
The Wall Street Journal noted young folks regard YouTube as a “de facto free music service,” but adults do not take full advantage of the site’s complimentary content. The survey showed 67 percent of them actually preferred radio for music consumption, but another 61 percent still gave CDs a whirl. Meanwhile, YouTube stole 44 percent, Pandora landed the No. 4 spot at 32 percent, and iTunes sat at fifth with 29 percent.
