Seth Weintraub

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We’ll have a review up as soon as we see Android 3.1 in the update menu.
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[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zGTWkuKCLbI]

Admeld, which allows publishers to sell ad inventory in real time to the highest bidder, seems to be a service that Google could add to its DFP, part of its Publisher tools.  Admeld purports to bring in ads from a variety of ad networks and exchanges, however.  Somehow it doesn’t seem intuitive that Google will keep the service bringing in outside ads when it seeks to serve its own.

Google had tried to buy Admeld earlier this year but talks broke down before a deal could be completed.

Google was willing to spend $150-$200 million on Admeld, but that price was too low for Admeld.

It looks like doubling the price helped seal the deal.
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Another excellent Google Doodle today marking what would have been Les Paul’s 96th birthday.  This one let’s you play a strange ‘Google’ Guitar (works with the keyboard too) and record to a Google-shortened URL for playback.
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[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y1lUgnAP38Q&w=670&h=400]

For those who may be into a $130 eInk B&W web browser, the newly released Nook Touch has an Easter Egg of a way to allow you to access the internal browser.  To activate it, enter a URL of the form mail.google.com into the Search function.

The Nook is an Android device after all and its Webkit browser should be able to work great for reading (pictures and movies less so). The-ebook-reader notes that not everything is fully baked with the browser:

Scrolling, zooming, and activating hyperlinks are hit-or-miss, and pages don’t load half the time. I tried downloading an EPUB from Feedbooks, the download worked, but the ebook would not open.

On the positive side, the menu system seems to work well. You can move between different windows, find on page, add bookmarks, adjust the settings—landscape mode even works.

Not to worry however, the Nook Touch also got its first Jailbreak this week as well. With the rooting, we’re likely to see numerous improvements to the web browser and also important functions like an email client and maps.

Nookdevs posts the whole process which requires:
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Our Samsung Chromebook just arrived and we’re giving it the first run through.

The device feels great – a bit bulkier than a MacBook Air but the keyboard is fantastic and the trackpad is much improved over the CR-48 (way bigger).  There is a quick trackpad training exercise at the boot up that is more for the computer than for the user.

The OS is considerably snappier than the CR-48.  Flash is also much improved but not yet at full laptop performance.

We’ll have more soon.

In the meantime, check out the unboxing gallery below:
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While Samsung and Acer are readying their ChromeOS laptops for release this summer, the CR-48 is still being looked over.  One user figured out a Firmware Easter Egg by doing some significant research (and taking a big fat hint laid earlier this week).  The Hex message at the bottom converts to ASCII characters and revealing the following message:

Greetings from the Chrome OS x86 firmware team. This message is brought to you by Randall, Bill, Vadim, Gaurav, and Kelly. Also by the letter G and the number 42. If you’ve enjoyed this gadget, please join us at http://www.chromium.org to help make it even better. We now return you to your regularly scheduled program, already in progress. No animals were harmed in the production of this message. Apply only to affected area. Cape does not enable wearer to fly. Contents may have settled during shipment. Use no hooks.

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My son’s current favorite author, Richard Scarry, is being honored by Google on what would be his 92nd birthday.  He’s also a childhood favorite of mine as well.
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Thant didn’t take long.  Verizon just announced that it too will have a thin Galaxy Tab 10.1.  But this one will still be as thin and carry LTE 4G hardware.

It is starting to get interesting.
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Hardware wise, it is hard to argue that the Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 isn’t as good as the iPad 2, if not better.  It is marginally thinner and lighter with a bigger 720P display.  It has better cameras (with LED Flash) and stereo speakers. Inside, it has relatively the same processor, storage and graphics (Samsung makes a lot of Apple’s iOS device guts).

The problem so far for Android, has been that Honeycomb has been a disappointment with its buggy performance and relatively few big tablet applications.  The XOOM, GSlate, Acer Iconia and ASUS offerings are also bricks compared to the svelte iPad 2.

The good news is that Samsung is releasing the Galaxy Tab at iPad prices on June 8th at Best Buy Union Square New York and the rest of the US on the 17th with Android 3.1 upgrades in tow. Honeycomb 3.1 has fixed a lot of the buggy performance of Android 3.0 and more and more Android tablet applications are coming every day.  In fact, take a look at what Netflix says:

Yes, Netflix will be available for the Galaxy Tab 10.1 when it hits 3.1 Honeycomb according to the Android market (it doesn’t work with Android 3.0).  See Samsung GT-P7510=Galaxy Tab 10.1.

The 32GB version of the Galaxy Tab 10.1 WiFi edition will be available for $599, while the 16GB version of the device will be available for $499.

Full press release below:
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It is pretty desperate times over at Nokia which has lost significant amounts of its market cap Since new CEO Stephen Elop announced plummeting numbers for most of its Symbian Smartphones and dumbphone handsets earlier this week.  What does one expect when the CEO publicly executes its flagship Symbian product with nothing to replace it for almost a year?

The company is now worth $25B and Microsoft is said to be trying to by the mobile phone division for somewhere around $19B.  Nokia-Siemens and its other businesses would likely remain independent.

For Microsoft and Nokia, it seems like a pretty cozy deal.  Microsoft goes from building OSes to building experiences end to end, like Apple, RIM and HP.  Just like PlaysforSure->Zune

But what about Microsoft’s other partners in Windows Phone 7?  Samsung, who has created arguably the best WP7 device in the Focus, HTC who has a broad range of Windows Phone 7 devices, Acer and other players would be left out in the cold.  They won’t use WP7 when Microsoft is making hardware through its Nokia subsidy (again, just like Zune).  You can’t compete against the company that makes your software.

They’d all probably double down on Android at that point.  In fact, just reading the tea leaves now might have executives at those companies scaling back their Windows Phone 7 R&D.

A floundering Nokia tied up with Microsoft could be the best thing to happen to Android yet.

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Update: Ended

From 9to5toys.com

Today only, until 4 pm ET, MacMall via eBay Daily Deal offers the Motorola Xoom 32GB WiFi Tablet with Google Android 3.0, model no. 00001NARGNLX, for $499.99 with free shipping. That’s $73 under our mention from two weeks ago and the lowest total price we’ve ever seen for this tablet by $31. (It’s also a current price low by $73.) This 0.51″-thick tablet weighs 1.6 lbs. and features an NVIDIA Tegra 2 1GHz dual-core processor, 10.1″ 1200×800 touchscreen LCD display, 802.11n wireless, Bluetooth 2.1 + EDR, front and rear cameras, accelerometer, gyroscope, microSD card slot, up to 10 hours of battery life, micro USB and HDMI connectivity, Android 3.0 Honeycomb, and more.

In the spirit of last night’s interview with Eric Schmidt, Search Engine Land posts a “mostly funny because it is kinda true” interpretation of Search Quality Engineer Matt Cutts’ thought processes when dealing with “Someone posting crazy shit about Google”.

Credit: SearchEngineLand

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I just finished watching Eric Schmidt’s conversation with Walt Mossberg at AllThingsD9 and here are some of the many notable things he said:

1. The biggie: The Gang of Four.  Google, Apple, Facebook and Amazon.  Four companies that are dominating their spaces right now and a lot of the friction is happening between these four in new spaces.  Each are partner/competitors with the other.  Half trillion market cap between them and growing wildly.  All based on platforms.  Very interesting way to look at things.  IBM was this in the 80s and Microsoft in the 90s.
2. Google Offers starts devaluing Groupon in Portland tomorrow.  The service rolls out in NYC and SF this summer.  Deals. My gut tells me that Groupon is going to be very sorry it didn’t take the $7B or whatever nutty price Google was offering and run with it.
3. He took the fall for letting Facebook win social “Four years ago, I wrote memos and I did nothing about those [in regard to Facebook] CEOs should take responsibility. I screwed up.”
4. He had three important things to say about Apple: 1.Google just reupped with Apple on Maps (as per our story from last week) 2. Kara Said Steve Jobs called Android a Probe in your pocket [Schmidt didn’t respond directly] and 3. On security, he said get aMac, dump your PC.
5. Face recognition is too creepy.  Google has stopped developing the technology for the fear it may be misused by evil-doers, though they would accept an Android app that did that into the Market.  Speaking of creepy, he said that he wants his coffin to rest at Google (to explain that he wants to stay a long time).  Also he almost said “Google knows where you live” but then he started getting shocked by GooglePR reps remotely and backed off.
6. The Google Wallet was a condensed version of the demo we saw last week.

More trouble in Microsoft land as Bloomberg reports that Microsoft device manufacturers are complaining about the software giant’s meddling in their affairs:

Microsoft Corp.  is putting “troublesome” restrictions on makers of processors used to run the coming Windows tablet-computer operating system, Acer Inc.  Chairman and Chief Executive Officer J.T. Wang said.

“They’re really controlling the whole thing, the whole process,” Wang said at the Computex trade show in Taipei without identifying the restrictions. Chip suppliers and PC makers “all feel it’s very troublesome,” he said.

Can you even imagine a PC manufacturer standing up to Microsoft publicly in a pre-iPad world?  While Acer is moving to Google for many of their tablet products, and even ChromeOS for one of their notebooks, Acer is still one of the three biggest Windows PC manufacturers on the planet and of course is expected to make Windows 8 slates…
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From 9to5toys.com:

If you want a solid, unlocked Android phone that is sure to get the latest updates, Ebay has a deal for you today. Heights Deals is offering a new in the box Nexus One with Radios for 3G on T-Mobile and EDGE on AT&T for just $260 without a plan and free shipping.  The Nexus One was the original Google phone and is still among the first to get the latest builds from Google.  This one comes with 4GB of internal storage (Expandable+32GB via MicroSD), 3.7-inch AMOLED display at 480x800px and a 5-megapixel camera.

Since it is new in the box, it comes with Android 2.1 but is immediately upgradable to Android 2.3.3 Gingerbread.
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On the possibility of Apple dropping Google Maps (we’ve heard they aren’t): Mayer says there are 200 million active users of Maps and in June more people will use them on mobile than the desktop. (Although at 100 million iPhones out there, an Apple exodus would put a monster dent in those numbers. Also, new Google Mobile Maps (not iOS) use vector tiles which can be up to 100 times smaller files than the traditional bitmap tiles.

Also, location is getting better as more data is input (learning), especially in big cities like New York with check-ins helping out.

Finally, she expects phones to know what you want before you ask, called ‘serendipity’ or ‘zero-click’.

Full transcript available here.

Even while Apple hasn’t released an iPhone since last Summer and a new Android device seems to come out every few days, the two companies have remained at their respective  month over month device shares for the first time according to the latest Nielsen survey.  Even RIM managed to only lose a point in device share in the mostly static March-April timeframe

Interestingly, Android users, though they don’t seem to pay for for Apps, download much more data (582Mb/user) than any other mobile OS users, even Apple’s data-hungry iPhone users (492Mb/user).  Sprint and T-Mobile’s unlimited plans might contribute to those numbers. Full data download figures below.

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[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mRcx1rxTLG8&w=670&h=400&hd=1]

The video may seem a little cheesy but the tech is definitely interesting if Asus can pull it off.  Revealed by leaks many times over the past few weeks, Asus’s Padfone got real today with its ability to house the smartphone inside a tablet shell.  The phone and the tablet communicate via microHDMI and USB with the latter also supplying power to the phone from the tablet shell batteries.

Like any of these types of things, the devil is in the details.  It will be interesting to see how well this is executed, especially with Google’s tablet OS (Honeycomb) and SmartphoneOS (Gingerbread) not expected to converge until later this year.

Asus’s full 2011 Computex Press release below:
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Prepare to be impressed:

A few months back, we unveiled Project Kal-El – our next-gen Tegra super chip – as the world’s first mobile quad-core processor. Kal-El combines a battery-friendly, powerhouse of a quad-core processor with a 12-core NVIDIA GPU that supports 3D stereo.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eBvaDtshLY8&HD=1&w=670&h=400]

NVIDIA via BGR
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The first thing that strikes me is that the US is running out of names for Smartphones quicker than even IP addresses.

‘Within’?

Whatever.

The short of it is that the Samsung Galaxy S2, pretty much the most bad ass phone available today, is coming to Sprint, one of the most Android -friendly carriers and will be called the ‘Within’.   They could call it the ‘Edsel’ and this would still be a sweet phone.

Top shelf specs include: 32GB internal storage with SD option. Dual Core processor, 4.27-inch display, 1GB RAM, Gingerbread and of course NFC which should make Google and its Wallet efforts pretty happy.  Engadget said of this device:

It’s the best Android smartphone yet, but more importantly, it might well be the best smartphone, period.

No timetable for launch exists but we know S2s are already running around Europe and Sprint users want to get their hands on this thing.  It would surprise me if this wasn’t out by the end of Summer.

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