Seth Weintraub

This is really cool:

Starting today, you can use Google Maps to find a sea turtle swimming among a school of fish, follow a manta ray and experience the reef at sunset—just as I did on my first dive in the Great Barrier Reef last year. You can also find out much more about this reef via the World Wonders Project, a website that brings modern and ancient world heritage sites online.

At Apo Island, a volcanic island and marine reserve in the Philippines, you can see anancient boulder coral, which may be several hundred years old. And in the middle of the Pacific, in Hawaii, you can join snorkelers in Oahu’s Hanauma Bay and drift over the vast coral reef at Maui’s Molokini crater.

Prepare to waste a fair bit of time exploring for turtles, fish, and other creatures on the reefs. Suddenly the 360-degree views of your neighborhood are not so interesting.

A phone dialer code can hard reset a Galaxy S2, S3, and a bunch of minor devices that use Samsung’s TouchWiz overlay. The idea is that the operator could enter it on the keypad manually to hard reset all of the data. However, it was discovered last month that an SMS could carry the number and reset the device (video above). Now, it seems some folks have tried embedding the call function in a web frame with those numbers. They were able to reset the Samsung Galaxy devices just by having the device visit a website.

[tweet https://twitter.com/stroughtonsmith/status/250561161613959168]

Devices without Samsung’s TouchWiz overlay, like the Galaxy Nexus or Nexus S, are not susceptible. Clearly, this is something Samsung needs to address in an update soon. Like TouchWiz was not bad enough already.

Via

[tweet https://twitter.com/stroughtonsmith/status/250551412445036544]
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[tweet https://twitter.com/gigaom/status/248846946163359744]

That’s a lot of mobile packets. I wonder if anything is bigger in terms of mobile packets delivered.

[tweet https://twitter.com/caseynewton/status/248847685061324802]

More from GigOM’s Mobilize conference.
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Google provided a statement to SearchEngineLand on Acer’s recent cancellation of the Aliyun phone. It comes late on a Friday, so you know it is not going to be well received.

Compatibility is at the heart of the Android ecosystem and ensures a consistent experience for developers, manufacturers and consumers.

Non-compatible versions of Android, like Aliyun, weaken the ecosystem. All members of the Open Handset Alliance have committed to building one Android platform and to not ship non-compatible Android devices.

This does not however, keep OHA members from participating in competing ecosystems.

Andy Rubin also added some clarity on the Android Developers blog (but he did not mention Acer or Aliyun by name once). Rubin mentioned the situation specifically on Google Plus, however…
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[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FAOJyBxjpcs]

Amazon just opened the floodgates to its forked Android-powered Kindles (7-inch only, so far).

The original with some beefed up internals is just $159. The new HD version (which closely matches the Google Nexus 7) is $199 for 16GB and $249 for 32GB.
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If I had any complaints about the original Droid RAZR last year, it was that the chrome, or bezel, around the display was a little much. The phone was extremely slim outside of its hump, but it was much wider and longer than it needed to be for a phone with a 4.3-inch display.

In presenting its new phones last week, Motorola did just as I hoped: It split the RAZR into two lines. The RAZR M has the same screen, but dramatically less chrome, while the HD took the same phone and increased the size of the screen to a 720p 4.7-inches. I briefly played with the HD, but I got to take a RAZR M home and it has been my go-to phone ever since. Here is the review:

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[ooyala code=”x3NHJ1NTo_h_k-nkcK3IFHmVebko22Nt”]

David Lawee, vice president of corporate development, says some things that will likely sound familiar if you used the Internet at all during the Samsung v. Apple trial. Wake up call, indeed.

[Bloomberg (non-flash) via BI]
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The Wall Street Journal published a report with some new information on the interface for the Google Glasses:

In all, the glasses are like a wearable smartphone, allowing the user to take pictures, send messages and perform other functions via voice-activated commands. For instance, say “OK, Glass” into one of the glasses’ two microphones and a menu pops off to the side of your vision showing icons that will let you take a picture, record a video, use Google Maps or make a phone call.

After 10 minutes of playing with the glasses—which the company prefers to call Google Glass, since they don’t have lenses—I could see their long-term potential. The device fit well. It was easy to snap a picture or video without taking my smartphone out of my pocket. It was cool to see the information there in front of my right eye, though a little disorienting. I kept closing my left eye, which was uncomfortable.

Mr. Brin said his favorite feature is the time-lapse capability that lets him snap photos of his kids every 10 seconds when he is playing with them. “I never think about taking out my phone,” he said. “That would really be disruptive to my play time.”

“I have always disliked the feeling that with technology I am spending a lot of my time and attention managing it,” added Mr. Brin, dressed casually in a white T-shirt and jeans. “The notion of seamlessly having access to your digital world without disrupting the real world is very important.”

The reporter used the glasses at the DVF Fashion show in New York City this week (Gallery). It sounds like the interface options are progressing since I wore the headset briefly at Google I/O in June. However, we are still a long way from a usable product.

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Sprint announced today that its two Samsung Google phones, the Galaxy Nexus and the Nexus S, would receive rolling Butter-rific Jelly Bean updates. That matches the GSM versions, which have been rolling out since Google I/O in late June.

Your play Verizon.

The presser is down south…

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Amazon today told us it would allow users of the Kindle Fire and Kindle Fire HD to remove the ads that show up on the lock screen for $15.  So, if you are an ad-free type of person, go ahead and make that a $174 Kindle Fire, $214 Kindle Fire HD and $314 Kindle Fire HD 8.9-inch. That is still a low price, but it is not quite as low. I wonder how much it will cost to use Google’s search engine?

If Google’s Glass(es) are going to ever gain mainstream acceptance, they will have to be seen as not only something acceptable to wear in public but also as something fashionable. To that end, Google is teaming with renowned designer Diane von Furstenberg on a project to document the creative process leading up to a fashion show.  On Sept. 13, the two companies will release a video of the project on the DVF Google+ page and Google’s YouTube channel.

The +DVF Page teases an announcement at PM today.

In a statement, Diane von Furstenberg said, “I am so excited to introduce Glass to the fashion world and use this revolutionary technology to give everyone a unique perspective into fashion.”  Sergey Brin, Google co-founder and head of Project X ,which oversees projects like Google Glass and driverless cars, said, “Beauty, style and comfort are as important to Glass as the latest technology. We are delighted to bring Glass to the runway together with DVF.”

WWD spotted Brin and wife Anne Wojcicki with DVF yesterday.

On Saturday afternoon, Google co-founder Sergey Brin was spotted at Diane von Furstenberg during fittings for her Sunday show. Brin and his wife Anne Wojcicki are slated to attend the show, and Wojcicki was being dressed by the designer for the occasion. Brin’s presence was more than just a sartorial coincidence: WWD has learned that some Google-developed technology will be introduced at the runway show. Specific details of the technology could not be learned, and an announcement about it is expected to be made Sunday morning.

Wearing a plain shirt, khaki shorts and Crocs, Brin, whose personal wealth is estimated to be $18.7 billion, admitted that style is not exactly on the top of his mind. “I probably wouldn’t call myself a fashion guy but I am getting there,” he said. Von Furstenberg and the pre-fashion show fittings could hasten the process. “It’s pretty impressive,” Brin said. “It’s quite the operation if you look at the number of styles and the models. It’s an amazing thing to watch.”

Although there is nothing in the press release explicitly saying so, it would not surprise me to see some runway models strutting around with some Glass headsets as well.

The press release follows below:

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Sure, Amazon is building on Google’s OS, and it sells Android apps originally developed for Android in its own Appstore for the Kindle Fire products, but that does not mean it owes Google any debt of gratitude or anything. The company has told various news outlets that its default search (and who knows if you can change it at this point) will be Microsoft’s Bing.  Amazon is probably getting some cash for the decision…as well as taking money for ads on the new Kindle Fires.

Google obviously will not be pleased with the news, but that is part and parcel of “being open.”

Perhaps Google should start putting its apps on the Amazon Appstore so that it can still gain exposure on the Kindle Fire platform, or perhaps we will see some APKs floating around that let users put Google services on Kindle Fires manually. Here’s to hoping.
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How did Amazon get such low price points on the new Fire tablets? JR Rafael points out something in the fine print:

Special Offers

The new Kindle Fire family comes with special offers that appear on the lock screen. Examples of special money-saving offers that customers will enjoy include a $5 credit in the Amazon MP3 Store and a $5 credit for select titles in the Amazon Instant Video Store. Customers will also receive special offers and screensavers from brands like AT&T, Discover and Intel, such as a special offer of a $10 Amazon.com Gift Card when a customer uses their Discover card to purchase a digital product on Amazon.

Translation: All these new devices are basically ad-supported.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0VkIpT3-kBM]

I’m still going to New York City. Maybe I’ll get a bagel.

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If you are anywhere near electricity, you probably know Apple formally announced its Sept. 12 event today. Not even an hour later, HTC announced that it would hold an event a week later.

At least it is not opening for Apple like others.

Speaking of which…we will be at the Motorola Droid RAZR HD event tomorrow, so stay tuned.

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Google’s popular Nexus 7 tablet, if you believe Paul O’Brien at MoDaC,  will get a 3G update sometime in mid-October just in time for the holidays. O’Brien specifically said 3G, but it would not be surprising to see 4G radios in there. In fact…it would be a huge mistake not to include at least HSPA+ radios, especially with Apple’s iPad mini on the horizon likely including a LTE option.

It would be interesting to see Google throw together a Chromebook-type plan from Verizon and other carriers in the U.S. and abroad. Google and Verizon offer users 100mb free each month for the first year on Chromebooks, but the deal probably hinges on Verizon exclusivity, which would be bad.

Meanwhile, three different carriers in Taiwan began taking pre-orders for the Nexus 7, which is made by Taiwanese-based maker ASUS.

That is a bad mockup, obviously. ->