Seth Weintraub

Bloomberg has the story.  Google has hired one of the commission’s top intellectual property officials, Suzanne Michel…

Michel, 49, is leaving her post at the FTC, where she worked for more than 11 years on patent antitrust issues and patent policy. She will join the company’s legal team…
Michel was the chief writer of a patent report the FTC issued in March, which analyzed the evolution of the patent system in the U.S. and made recommendations on how to improve patent law to promote innovation. The report also made suggestions to the courts on how to make patent remedies more effective.

Seems like a good fit.  Patents and FTC are two big areas where Google is spending a lot of time these days.  Hopefully her FTC bosses don’t take the poaching too harshly.

She’s also got a Ph.D. in chemistry and is a whiz on a Razor scooter so she should fit right in at the GooglePlex
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[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zUGheQ7OT8I]

Android devices seem to be getting bigger and bigger which is good if you like huge mobile devices and even bigger tablets.  But to be “take everywhere”, devices need to get smaller.

Think the size of an iPod nano that many have taken to wearing on their wrists like a watch.

WIMM is building a platform based on devices this size.  They are squeezing Android onto super-small devices with 160×160 screens with Bluetooth and Wifi tagging along.  The devices can be worn as watches, on a belt or bag strap or even on the neck.   Not only will these thigs be able to play media, they’ll also be able to pull feeds from RSS, Twitter and Social media Sites.  They’ll also make great universal remotes for not only entertainment centers but anything else you can think of.

I like this idea a lot but the devil is in the details and execution is paramount.

Full release below:
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If you are a mainstream Chrome user like I imagine most of you are, the first stable version of Chrome 13 is now available for auto upgrade.  Why upgrade?

Google Instant Pages prefetches links so that page load times increse dramatically.  Linux and Windows users will now also get a print preview (Linux before Mac?! oh ChromeOS :P)

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Jn93FDx9oI]

To manually upgrade, go to about Chrome and hit the upgrade button (below):
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[youtube=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OJBgALfs1hI]

Samsung, Blackboard and the University of Southern Mississippi are teaming up to bring 1,000 students free Galaxy Tab 10.1s…

The University of Southern Mississippi is piloting up to 1,000 Galaxy Tab 10.1 devices to be distributed to selected Honors College, McNair Scholars, Southern Style and Gulf Coast students. The goal of this mobile initiative is to provide students with privately funded tablets focused on enhancing access to education. These tablets, loaded with Blackboard Mobile™ Learn, will fundamentally change the educational experience by giving students and educators mobile access to their courses, syllabi, content, e-textbooks, grades, schedules, emergency notifications and much more.

Press Release follows:
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As promised in their latest horrific earnings report, Logitech has lowered the Revue GoogleTV box to just $99.  That’s $200 less than it was yesterday, though sales had it near $150 in the past.  Best Buy has dropped the price as well.  Other retailers have yet to drop their prices, though that is expected to change soon.

Sony is also deeply discounting their GoogleTVs as well, though they haven’t made a formal announcement on the matter.

Google is expected to roll out a Honeycomb update for the Logitech/Sony GoogleTV by the end of summer which will give the device the ability to run apps on the big screen, a simplified interface as well as numerous other optimizations and improvements.  Via 9to5toys.com

Press release follows:
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[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c0XLL86e1FU]

Google today released a new bottom-floating toolbar for Internet Explorer and Chrome users (no Firefox?) called Google Related.  They explain it like this:

Google Related is a browsing assistant that offers interesting and useful content while you are browsing the web. For instance, if you’re browsing a page about a restaurant in San Francisco, Google Related will assist you by displaying useful information about this restaurant such as the location of the restaurant on a map, user reviews, related restaurants in the area, and other webpages related to San Francisco restaurants — all in one place.

Whenever you’re navigating to a new page, Google Related will look for interesting related content and, if available, display it in a bar at the bottom of your page. Google Related can display categories such as videos, news articles, maps, reviews, images, web sites and more. To preview a listed item or see additional items, just use your mouse to hover over different categories in the bar. For example, when you hover over a video link, the video pops up in a preview box and you can play the video directly on the page.

This is an interesting move that will likely get a lot more clicks through Google…if it catches on.
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Dr. Raymond M. Soneira,President, DisplayMate Technologies Corporation put the current crop of Android tablets up against the iPad 2.  What he found was that the iPad 2 beat them all, save for the Samsung Galaxy Tab which narrowly beat Apple’s contender.

While the iPad 2 display easily outperformed all of the previous Android Tablets, with the new Galaxy Tab 10.1, Samsung has delivered the first Android Tablet with an impressive, potentially outstanding display, but then ruined it by turning up the color level to obnoxious levels – apparently in an effort to overcompensate and blatantly standout from the other mobile LCD displays that have subdued color. But in the case of color, too little is a lot better than too much…

As a result the iPad 2 still delivers the best color picture quality and accuracy of all of the Tablets, even though its colors are somewhat subdued. As things stand, based on all of the display tests, the iPad 2 and Galaxy Tab 10.1 are reasonably close in performance in most categories, so it’s almost a tie, but the Galaxy Tab is ahead more often than the iPad 2, so the Galaxy Tab is the Winner, by a nose…

Perhaps most interesting was that the Motorola Xoom, which is the official Google Honeycomb tablet, came in last behind Asus and Acer.

Read the report for all of the details.  Via ZDNET
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Samsung officially announced the availability of the LTE Galaxy Tab 10.1 for July 28th at Verizon. Itdoesn’t appear that the LTE radios have added any depth or weight to the Tab.

Pricing and data plans (which include  a $25 Media Hub):

• Verizon Wireless will offer two 4G LTE Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 models both priced with two year customer agreements: $529.99 or the 16GB model and $629.99 for the 32GB model.
• Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 customers will have the option to choose one of the following Mobile Broadband plans:

• $30 monthly access for 2GB monthly allowance
• $50 monthly access for 5GB monthly allowance
• $80 monthly access for 10GB monthly allowance

Full release follows:
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  .
Before left and after right 

You kind of knew this was going to happen: Google Books is now back in the  iOS App Store, but without ability to buy books directly from online.  Note the missing button at the top left.

Apple, you win.
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From 9to5toys.com:

Sony Store offers its Sony 24″ 1080p LED-Backlit Widescreen LCD HD Television with Google TV, model no. NSX-24GT1, for $299.99 with free shipping. That’s $17 under our mention from two weeks ago and the lowest total price we could find by $117. Sales tax is added where applicable. Features include a 1920×1080 (1080p) native resolution, LED backlight, 2,500:1 dynamic contrast ratio, 8GB of built-in storage, wireless keypad remote control, 802.11n wireless, Gigabit Ethernet, USB connectivity, one HDMI input, and VGA, component, and other video inputs. It also features support for the Android-based Google TV service (which allows you to watch Internet content on your HDTV) as well as applications for Netflix, Twitter, Pandora, CNBC, NBA TV, and more.
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As rumored, Samsung just broke the news: The Google phone is finally coming to AT&T.  The Nexus S will be sold through Best Buy and Best buy Mobile (right next to the  Sprint and T-Mobile version) for $99 with a two year plan.  Interestingly, no mention of of ‘4G’, real or fake.

Now Verizon is the only major carrier not to carry the Nexus S.

Full release follows:
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(Triumph on the left, Virgin Optimous Center and Samsung right)

Let’s get this out of the way first: I like Virgin Mobile.  The Sprint prepaid subsidiary offers plans that work well for me because I don’t use a lot of voice minutes – specifically, their Unlimited Data/Text Minutes plan which just unfortunately went up from $25/month to $35/month for 300 minutes of talk.  Virgin also doesn’t put too much trash on top of Android and the phones they sell don’t have manufacturer overlays on them either.  You almost get a Google phone, though one here that is left back on Froyo.

If anything slows Virgin down, my major gripe has been their lack of diversity in phones and specifically at the high end in Virgin’s lineup.  Until now, they’ve offered a small anemic Samsung Slider and a very solid but economical LG Optimus V (which I reviewed at Fortune).

That all changed today with the release of the Motorola Triumph (manual- PDF), a slim 4.1-inch screen candy bar with a 1-GHz Processor and front and back cameras.  The device is handsome and coated with a soft rubber feel that certainly improves the grip.  How does it perform?

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[vodpod id=Video.13491153&w=425&h=350&fv=webhost%3Dfora.tv%26amp%3Bclipid%3D13849%26amp%3Bcliptype%3Dclip]

Doesn’t seem like your normal CFO Role.  After 8 minutes of busses and food, it gets juicy…  Full transcript.

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From 9to5toys.com:

(Click to print)

That little marvel above means the Acer iConia Tab is $299 after coupon, the ASUS EeePad Transformer is $299 as well and the Dell Streak 7 drops to a paltry $199.  The Motorola Xoom drops to $399.  Not bad for folks who have a Staples nearby.

Remember, only one per person per day and not good for the Nook Color – which you can get from Barnes and Noble for $199.

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If Samsung and Acer Chromebooks aren’t doing it for you and you’ve got a lot of extra money to throw at your ChomeOS experience, notorious ChomeOS hacker Hexxeh has ported the latest build of the ChromeOS to The $1000 MacBook Air.

Hexxeh uses the Boot Camp Bios Emulator to get it working but sadly that adds about 15 seconds to the boot process.

Every piece of hardware works except for the Bluetooth (because Bluetooth isn’t supported by Chromium OS yet). So WiFi works, graphics are fully accelerated via nVidia’s drivers, screen brightness controls work, sound works, touchpad works. Basically everything works. The touchpad drivers could use some tweaking, as scrolling is currently painfully slow, but that’s about the only issue I can think of. Boot time is around 22 seconds to the login screen, most of which is wasted by Apple’s EFI implementation, as once control is passed to the kernel, the boot only takes a further 6-7 seconds thanks to the fast SSD inside the Air. Battery life is probably slightly better than that of OS X.

In case you haven’t visited 9to5mac.com recently, MacBook Airs are due for an update any day now (back to the drawing board?).  But perhaps it is something to try out with your old MacBook Air?

via BlogsDNA

After a few tense days of anticipation, Apple has finally released Google Plus for iOS devices…

Google Plus just showed up in the App Store.  It is a free app and will allow iOS users (not iPad universal yet) to connect with their Google Plus ‘Circles’.  Bonus: Google+ iphone app doesn’t work with iOS beta 3.

Description

Google+ for mobile makes sharing the right things with the right people a lot simpler. Huddle lets you send super-fast messages to the people you care about most. And no matter where you are, the stream lets you stay in the loop about what your friends are sharing and where they’re checking in.

Features:
* Circles let you share the right things with just the right people.
* Stream is where you can get updates from your circles or see what people are saying about things nearby.
* Huddle is super-fast group messaging for everyone in your circles.

Google+ is only available for users 13 and older.

Just yesterday, we were wondering what the holdup was.  Now where’s our Skype for iPad!?

More screenies below..
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Google uses the goo.gl URL shortener to let its partners shorten links to their sites and internal Google sites.  However, today it was revealed that Google will have an even shorter shortener for Google own sites, like Plus, obviously.

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If you are a mid/high-end Android lover in the US, but want unlimited data and don’t want to pay high monthly fees, it is hard to beat the Motorola Triumph.  It hits a lot of sweetspots:

• Front (5MP) and rear(.3MP) cameras which take 720P video, 4.1 inch 480×800 display and big 1400mA battery
• Relatively untouched Android 2.2 (boo! bring on 2.3.4!)
• Plans start at $35/month: 300 talk minutes, unlimited internet and SMS (gets throttled to 256k at 3.5GB in October)

The best news is that it is hitting Best Buy ahead of its supposed July 20th launch date.  Reddit users (via Phandroid) are reporting on walking into the stores right now and picking them up.

The Optimus V launch was the same with people picking them up before the launch at Radio Shack.

You can buy it online here.
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From 9to5toys.com:

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Want an Android 3.2 tablet and don’t want to shell out a lot of coin?  Today Woot! has the refurb XOOM 32GB Wifi for $399+ $5 shipping.

It’s hard to argue with $25/month for unlimited internet/texts for a 3G smartphone plan.  Some would even call it the “Best Smartphone Deal on the Planet”.  One way Virgin was able to keep their prices so low was that their smartphones had tiny screens and weren’t multimedia juggernauts.  That all changed last month with the Motorola Triumph announcement.  The 4.1-inch display Android 2.2 device has a front facing videochat camera and the hardware to run Flash, meaning a lot more data is going to be sucked up by these devices. Virgin Mobile also said the Motorola Triumph will be available for sale as of July 20.

So, Virgin is changing its data plans.  The base model 300-minute plan is now $35/month.  However, the unlimited everything plan drops to $55/month.

More bad news: In October, Virgin will cap their unlimited at 2.5GB/month and will throttle data to a still respectable 256kbps but they say only 3% of users should expect to get throttled at current usage patterns.

Why October?

image via

Press release follows:
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As we reported last week, Google is working on a photo sharing service called  Photovine.

Photovine site is now live but not “open for business”.  It doesn’t appear to be part of Google Plus though it will offer some “social network service integration”.  It is also weird that the start page has an iPhone rather than a Nexus S and the like..

Google, who barely appear on the page at all, advertises the service:

Photovine is a community that’s about creating fun and unique collections of photos that we call Vines. In Photovine, vines connect you with people through the ideas and themes expressed in your photos. A vine is like a constantly growing family of photos connected through a common caption created by you, your friends, and people all over the world. Some examples of vines could be: “What Weekends Are Made Of”, “Secret Stuffed Animal”, “Party People”, or, “Love of My Life”. As people add photos to vines, they tell their own stories about the moments, images, and ideas that define our lives in a way that’s social, creative, and fun. Start a vine by taking a photo and creating a new caption, or add to an existing vine. Other people will see your vine and join in by adding their own photo, showing their own take on the caption.

More Q&A below:
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