9to5 Staff

If you happen to be in Tokyo this holiday season, you may want to drop by the Samsung Galaxy Café on the second floor of Hillside zone of Roppongi Hills for an opportunity to meet Samsung’s cool new bot in person. Heck, it may even give you a little holiday hug! They call it Hug-chan (“chan” is a term of endearment normally attached to the names of girls in Japan). It couples advanced robotics with Google’s Android software and Samsung’s Galaxy smartphone and tablet.

A Galaxy S smartphone issues commands to a Galaxy Tab 10.1 LTE tablet that provides computer vision through its front and back cameras. It also controls the robot’s arms, legs and other moving parts. It doubles as Hug-chan’s charming head with eyes and other facial expressions rendered on the tablet’s display. In addition to the tablet camera, Hug-chan has a few cameras to detect and interact with users. Samsung even set up a website that lets people watch a live video stream from Hug-chan’s cameras.

A little background and a behind-the-scenes video is right below the fold…

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g77dDh7T92U]

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Google’s holiday-themed Google Doodle is about to go live any moment on the Google.com homepage, and the above image is what it should look like, according to Search Engine Land’s Barry Schwartz. Funny thing is…we thought Schwartz only leaked gadgets these days. You can check out a full gallery representing 11 years of Google Doodles here. The website was recently revamped with the familiar Google+ look.

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Samsung confirmed in a blog post yesterday that the original Galaxy S smartphone and its 7-inch Galaxy Tab tablet would not receive the Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich software update due to complications stemming from the custom TouchWiz user interface skin found on the two gadgets.

The problem is based upon both ICS and TouchWiz being hungry for computing resources, and neither the Galaxy S phone nor the Galaxy Tab tablet sport sufficient RAM and ROM to run TouchWiz alongside the demanding Android 4.0 operating system. The argument may come as a surprise to some, considering the Nexus S that is getting an ICS update runs the same 1GHz Hummingbird processor/RAM as the Galaxy S handset.

On the other hand, the Galaxy S does have to accommodate for an additional custom software offering versus the stock Android experience on the Nexus S device. Samsung, on Tuesday, published a list of devices eligible for Ice Cream Sandwich upgrade, and it includes the Galaxy SII, Galaxy SII LTE, Galaxy Note, Galaxy R, Galaxy Tab 10.1, Galaxy Tab 8.9, Galaxy Tab 7.7 and Galaxy Tab 7.0 Plus.

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It looks like Google tripled its spending to keep its search engine the default choice in Mozilla’s Firefox browser. The usually well-connected Kara Swisher reportedt on the AllThingsD blog that Google had to up its spending, because the other contenders, namely Microsoft and Yahoo, were looking to replace the default Google.com choice in Firefox with their own search products.

It is worth noting that Yahoo’s search engine is powered by Microsoft’s technology. Furthermore, although Chrome recently surpassed Firefox as the second most frequently used browser in key markets, Microsoft’s Internet Explorer remains the leading web browser. The Windows maker also teamed with Mozilla on the “Firefox with Bing” initiative a few months ago. It is reasonable to assume that all those factors combined have led Google to outspend its rivals to keep its search engine the default choice in the Firefox browser.

According to Swisher:

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Caption contests are everyone’s favorite, even if they’ve been overused, and Google has decided to do one of its own. As you’d expect from the world’s search monster, it challenges you to describe a bunch of illustrations that depict people using Google search.

Available at the Inside Search site, the contest invites you to:

Come up with your most creative caption illustrating what these characters are searching for on Google. You can also vote for your favorites and share them with friends!

The company teamed up with artists Matthew Diffee, Emily Flake, Christoph Niemann, Danny Shanahan and Jim Woodring to come up with a bunch of funny cartoons that all share a a common twist – characters running Google searches. Upon submitting your caption, it should appear on the site. You can then share it using a unique link or vote on other submissions. It’s a nice little time-killer, go ahead and give it a try.

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Who has the most spectacular tablet display: Amazon’s, Apple’s or Barnes & Noble’s? That’s what Dr. Raymond Soneira, president of DisplayMate Technologies Corporation of Amherst, N.H., set out to find out in his IPS tablet display technology shoot-out where he pitted Apple’s iPad 2 tablet against Amazon’s Kindle Fire device and Barnes & Noble’s Nook Tablet. The goal was to figure out which device packed the best IPS display. By the way -LG Displays, the world’s leading manufacturer of IPS LCDs- is the supplier of IPS panels for the three devices used in the shoot-out.

The iPad 2, the test note said, remains the gold standard in tablet displays while Motorola’s Xoom and Acer’s Iconia Tab serve as prime examples of low-quality LCD displays. The shoot-out praises iPad’s 132-ppi displays as being “virtually identical in performance to the impressive iPhone 4 Retina Display.” It is well calibrated, delivers bright images with excellent contrast, “reasonably accurate colors,” and very good viewing angle. A major drawback is that it has a reduced color gamut, although it is somewhat mitigated with the increased color saturation by steepening its intensity scale.

As for Amazon’s and Barnes & Noble’s tablets…

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Intel has had little luck putting its chips into smartphones and tablets, as the devices continue to rely predominantly on silicon designs based around Britain’s ARM Holdings technology. Its easy to see why: ARM-licensed chips built by the likes of Nvidia, Qualcomm, Samsung and Texas Instruments are famous for their efficiency in terms of CPU performance versus power consumption.

Nevertheless, the world’s largest chipmaker is hoping to turn the tables with the Medfield platform: a 32-nanometer Atom processor for tablets and smartphones. Google and Intel announced a partnership at the Intel Developers Forum 2011 in San Francisco that promises to put Medfield chips in Android devices beginning January 2012.

Intel unveiled a reference design today for Android smartphones using the Medfield architecture. According to Technology Review, prototype hardware is speedier than today’s flagship smartphones without taxing the battery heavily. Medfield-driven Ice Cream Sandwich smartphones and tablets, performance-wise, should be able to play Blu-ray-rated high-definition video, stream to the tube over a wireless network, and take up to 10 8-megapixel images in burst mode. Do not mistaken the above image for an iPhone 4S, because it is just a reference prototype design meant as a guidance for OEMs looking to incorporate Intel’s chips into their products.

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[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FNcgXMW3_0M]

Right on the heels of Monday’s release of Firefox 9.0 for Windows, Mac OS X and Linux (and the renewal of its search deal with Google), the Mozilla team announced Wednesday in a blog post an update to Firefox for Android.

Built on the same rendering engine as Firefox for desktop computers, mobile Firefox is now finally optimized for Android tablets. The app features full screen portrait browsing with tabs to take full advantage of a larger canvas on tablets. Full screen view also lets users swipe to the to reveal a panel with handy thumbnails of open tabs.

This release also supports Android’s Action bar for quick access to back, forward and bookmark buttons, in addition to preferences, add-ons (more than 160 add-ons are already available for Firefox mobile), downloads and other frequently used options. Firefox 9.0 for Android also sports an improved HTML5 support with HTML5 Form Validation API and HTML5 Input Tag for Camera Access. Read below for release notes. Firefox for Android is a free download from Android Market, so grab it now.

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Mozilla, the open source organization behind the Firefox browser that is receiving a beating from Google’s Chrome, announced in a blog post today that it has signed a new search agreement with Google.

We’re pleased to announce that we have negotiated a significant and mutually beneficial revenue agreement with Google. This new agreement extends our long term search relationship with Google for at least three additional years.

The deal, like similar previous agreements, will mandate Mozilla to make Google the default search engine in Firefox’s search box and Awesome bar for at least 3 more years in exchange for an unknown sum. Mozilla said it is “not at liberty” to disclose the terms of the deal. In addition to individual and corporate donations and grants, the majority of Mozilla’s revenue comes from its default search deal with Google.

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

Google today said its YouTube site hit a trillion playbacks in 2011 – that’s a 1,000,000,000,000 view counts for you, or about 140 views for every person on the earth. In a post over at the official YouTube blog, the company invited folks to “see what the world watched on YouTube in 2011 with YouTube Rewind”, available at www.youtube.com/rewind.

It’s an interactive timeline of this year’s most popular videos and events. As you can imagine, kitten videos, dog clips and videos of cute babies (iPad toddlers, anyone?) are again amongst the most-viewed clips not put out by big music companies. And what’s the biggest YouTube video of the year?

Rebecca Black, of course, an American pop singer who also dominated Google’s annual list of the fastest-growing search queries. Her music video is followed by this cute dog clip, then the Jack Sparrow music video (featuring Michael Bolton).

In the “most watched videos from major music labels globally” category, Pitbull’s On The Floor was by the most popular music video, although their Give Me Everything (featuring Ne-Yo, Afrojack and Nayer) and Rain Over Me (featuring Marc Anthony) were pretty popular as well. In fact, those three music videos accrued over four hundred million views.

The majority of YouTube clips that have managed to clock insane view counts throughout the year come from YouTube’s VEVO channel, dedicated to music videos (VEVO is a joint venture among Sony Music Entertainment, Universal Music Group, and Abu Dhabi Media.

Go past the break for a handy list of the most popular YouTube videos of 2011 across several categories.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kfVsfOSbJY0]

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WordPress, by far, is the most popular blogging platform in the world. It issued a version 2.0 update to its Android application nearly two months after the company debuted the WordPress for iOS 2.0 app. Now available on Android tablets, the new WordPress for Android 2.0 app sports an all-new user interface with dashboard access to any part of the app. The Quick action bar at the top also lets you switch blogs, refresh your content and call up the Dashboard.

The new formatting toolbar lets users easily create links, copy posts over to any other Android app and more. Users also have more control over the alignment of post images, captioning, titling and positioning. Wordpress for Android 2.0 is a free download from Android Market. More information is available in an announcement blog post by WordPress.

In addition, if you’re serious about blogging on the go, or just running your own WordPress blog, you may want to take a look at WordAds – their take on Google’s AdSense for WordPress blogs.

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Samsung confirmed in an official blog post today that some of its Galaxy SII smartphone and Galaxy Note tablet models would get an Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich software update starting in the first quarter of 2012.

“Other Galaxy devices will soon follow,” wrote the South Korean electronics giant in the post. A list of upgradeable Galaxy tablets and smartphones includes the Galaxy SII, Galaxy SII LTE, Galaxy Note, Galaxy R, Galaxy Tab 10.1, Galaxy Tab 8.9, Galaxy Tab 7.7 and Galaxy Tab 7.0 Plus.

“For upgradable models, Samsung will make separate announcements on details of OS updates schedule for each market according to market situation and carriers’ requirements,” said the company.

Other vendors separately released their Android 4.0 upgrade plans, including Motorola, HTC, LG, Huawei and Sony Ericsson. Both Motorola and Sony Ericsson recently blogged about the challenges of releasing timely software updates for Android devices in an effort to mitigate the public perception that vendors are not doing enough to reduce the Android platform fragmentation. The posts, however, prompted PCMag.com to proclaim the Android Update Alliance as “already dead” before it even took off.

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[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d2WJxCH9whI]

Google is in full holiday swing (what, you haven’t heard?). They just posted, on YouTube, a rap video that was put together by its employees, also know as Googlers. It is intended to “help St. Nick with his big flight this year.”

The song was written and produced by “all Google employees,” and some of them are featured in the clip. The video’s composition is credited to Ranidu, a Google business systems integrator and musician. The video was produced with the help of Google’s friends at Seedwell.

Matt Kane, a Google Content and User Education Specialist and hip-hop enthusiast did lyrics, and we have included them below.

By the way, Apple is helping Santa run errands with Siri in its new iPhone 4S commercial.

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Are you dreaming of a white Christmas online? Don’t worry, Google’s gone all out this year to make winter festivities memorable for both its employees and users. As we reported this morning, Google staffers, also known as Googlers, were treated with a free Galaxy Nexus smartphone sporting a customized back cover depicting Android and Google Plus icons.

Then, in another display of holiday spirit, the company brought in much ice and snow and sprayed it in front of building B44, also known as the Android building, at their Mountain View, Calif., headquarters.

The company’s social biz head Vic Gundotra posted the above image on his Google Plus profile with the caption: “Who says it never snows in Mountain View, California?”

The time-lapse clip below that shows the event was posted by Jason Chen, a technical program manager with Google. The search company did not forget about its users, surprising and delighting them with a few big improvements to Google Plus ahead of New Year. Google also let folks call Santa right from Gmail to leave him a Holiday message (Google Voice number 855-34-SANTA).

Lastly, Google tweaked its search engine with a snowflake animation. Go to Google.com and search for ‘let it snow’. This search term should produce snowflakes that will fill the page and eventually whiten out thesearch results. You can even click the left mouse button and drag the pointer around for fog removal. On an unrelated Holiday note, Google also revamped their Doodle website with the Google Plus design language.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=osm1ldD1XwQ#!]

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Google staffers, also known as Googlers, claim their free Galaxy Nexus smartphone.

Google knows how to take care of its employees. According to a Google Plus post by Edu Pereda, a software engineer at Google’s Swiss offices, the company is treating each employee with a customized Galaxy Nexus smartphone for Christmas. 9to5Google learned the United States versions are going to be Verizon.

The Next Web’s Matt Brian explained that the search giant teamed with Samsung to outfit the Galaxy Nexus with a customized back cover depicting many Google Plus and Android icons (see the image below). Hardware specifications remain unchanged, though.

Apparently Google’s London and Zurich operations were both confirmed to have handed out free devices to employees, requiring staff to line up and claim the handsets, as shown in the above photograph.

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

For the eleventh year in a row, Google publishes its annual overview of the fastest-growing search terms of the past year, providing a pretty accurate overview of search trends on the Google.com search engine. Called Zeitgeist, it “sorts billions of Google searches to capture the year’s ten fastest-rising global queries and the rest of the spirit of 2011”, says the official Zeitgeist site. We find the initiative pretty interesting. Not only does it offer a valuable insight into what searches revealed about the interests of users, it also reveals the issues that have troubled the world throughout the year.

A couple interesting highlights, per Google’s blog post:

• Rebecca Black was the #1 fastest rising query globally and Google’s own Google+ social thing is ranked second
• Adele made the fastest rising lists in over 15 countries
• Apple’s late co-founder Steve Jobs made the list (mark 1:50 in the above clip), as did reality star Ryan Dunn and defendant Casey Anthony
• iPad 3 and iPhone 5 were among the often-searched terms (no surprises here)
• Devotees turned to Google following the April 4 passing of Sai Baba, an Indian guru, spiritual figure, mystic, philanthropist, and educator
• cupcakes made top food lists in over a dozen countries
• Hurricane Irene in the U.S. and earthquakes in Christchurch and Japan also topped the charts as thousands of people affected by those natural disasters turned to Google.com to seek information about their loved ones

These are just a few of the many noteworthy findings of Zeitgeist 2011. Make sure to check out the official site, they’ve really upped the ante in the visualization department. We especially like detailed infographics and the tools allowing visitors to mine whatever data interests them most, and even compare terms across categories.

Twitter and Yahoo did a similar thing so you may wanna have a look at Twitter’s Year in Review and Yahoo’s Top Searches of 2011.

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Always the first to exploit competitors’ real or perceived weaknesses, Microsoft this morning posted an interesting message on Twitter in an attempt to exploit the Android malware issue that has been in the headlines over the past couple of days.

The message points to a Twitter profile belonging to the Windows Phone evangelist and Windows Team blog contributor Ben Rudolph, inviting owners of Android handsets to explain their #droidrage on Twitter.

The message reads:

That @BenThePCGuy…always causing trouble. Now he’s giving away free Windows Phones to people with #droidrage. See his feed for details.

While the Windows maker is seeking to sooth Android-malware-angsted users with Windows Phone giveaway (Rudolph is giving five free Windows Phones to posters with the worst malware horror stories), the Twitter backlash ensued.

One user wrote:

Criticizing your competitors rather than extolling your own virtues is always a sign of failure.

Another one joked:

One time I was walking through the desert on Tatooine, talking on my mobile when R2D2 mugged me. #DroidRage Do I get my free phone now?

What do you think, is Microsoft wrong to invite people to diss about Android on Twitter? Meet us in comments.

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Google’s Vic Gundotra just announced on his Google+ page a host of new Hangouts features meant to “go beyond the status update”. In short, you can now hangout on any post (an invitation will be added to the comments), call any phone number in the world and conference in anyone (free outbound calls to US and Canada, international calling rates are “super, super low”) and initiate a hangout session from the official Google+ app for Android or iPhone by tapping the new hangout icon.

The executive also shared an interesting milestone for Hangouts on Air, saying “hundreds of people” whitelisted as part of their trial now have the ability to broadcast their hangouts to the world. “Our goal is to enable this for everyone on the planet”, Gundotra noted. Initiating a Hangout session from your phone requires a new Google+ app, which will be available in Android Market within a few days, Google said (“coming soon” to the App Store).

The official Google blog has more information.

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A software update for T-Mobile’s Galaxy SII is dropping today, bringing several enhancements pertaining to the handset’s battery performance, wireless network issues and Caller ID problems. According to a support page over at the T-Mobile USA web site, an over-the-air firmware update will upgrade the device to Android 2.3.5 (build T989VUVKL1).

The software update will also be available via Kies mini and is not required so you can opt out of the upgrade and continue using the previous software version. The company also tweeted that the white version of the Galaxy SII smartphone is available today via their online store.

According to their Facebook page, “a new white color option that will be available for T-Mobile customers just in time for the holidays”. The carrier also reiterated in the post comments that “we do not have any new information regarding the iPhone coming to T-Mobile”, instead pointing folks to their September 26 blog post on the prospect of T-Mobile iPhone.

The carrier also aired an interesting commercial pitting Apple’s iPhone 4S against HTC’s Amaze 4G in an arcade fight.

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[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_EzmdP4AKMI#!]

Friendly, amusing, relevant, focused on product features but without offending either camp (Samsung, we’re looking at you). Love the cheap tune, BTW.

From the YouTube description:

The iPhone 4S owner learns the hard way that its new camera can’t hold up to some of the killer camera features on the T-Mobile HTC Amaze 4G such as BurstShot, SmartShot panorama and SweepShot.

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Hop on board an American Airlines flight this holiday season and your pilot will be wielding an iPad as a flight bag replacement but you – a first-class passenger –  will be treated with a Galaxy Tab 10.1 to keep you entertained. Keen on bringing balance back to the force, the airliner teamed up with South Korea-based Samsung to offer the Galaxy Tab 10.1 on their premium cabins onboard certain transcontinental flights. Here’s the sales line:

Sit back, relax, and let the new Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 take you to the movies or catch up on your favorite shows. The new device enables a unique viewing experience, featuring a bold and vibrant LCD, with brilliant colors and crisp definition.

Go past the fold for a list of flights serving some Galaxy Tab in-flight entertainment.

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