9to5 Staff

DigiTimes this morning reported an interesting story about Microsoft talking to Nvidia, Qualcomm, Texas Instruments, Intel and AMD about using their hardware in tablets running the company’s yet-to-be-released Windows 8 operating system. Microsoft reportedly asked each chip maker to invite two PC vendors for joint development and testing. Turns out the software company would love to see Windows 8-powered tablets from Samsung, Hewlett-Packard and Dell, but the love does not seem to extend to Asus, Acer, HTC and other Asian first-tier vendors.

Taiwan-based PC vendors who have been in long-term partnerships with Microsoft have complained to the Ministry of Economic Affairs (MOEA) because they were not invited to participate, and hope for the government’s negotiation with Microsoft, the sources added.

This is interesting because both Acer and Asus have recently released high-end Honeycomb tablets with dual screens foldable between the tablet and “PC” mode. It appears as if Microsoft is unnecessarily distancing itself from first-tier Android vendors, the move that could easily bite them a few months from now.

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Google is holding a partner event on Thursday, May 26 “to experience our latest innovations”, per the invite above. Bloomberg thinks the obligatory “people familiar with the matter” have nailed the agenda down to a new mobile payment service (and WSJ’s AllThingsD agrees):

The service will let consumers with specially equipped phones that run on Google’s Android operating system pay for goods and redeem coupons with their handsets, said the people, who wouldn’t be identified because the plan isn’t public. The technology is available on the Android-powered Nexus S from Sprint, the third-largest U.S. wireless operator.

Google’s service is said to utilize NFC (Near Field Communication) technology which requires a phone with an embedded NFC chip and NFC-enhanced cash registers. The combo lets buyers pay for goods simply by waving their phone in front of the cash register. The search company will apparently roll out this service in New York, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Chicago and Washington, DC. Could this mark another gold opportunity for the search monster? Sure, and here’s why…

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iTunes syncing? No, this is Miro 4 and it enables full Android syncing support for both your media files and apps

Tired of DoubleTwist? Looking for an alternative media player with seamless Android syncing? Look no further than Miro 4, a cross-platform media player from the non-profit Participatory Culture Foundation. Promising to “let you break free”, the program claims a long list of impressive features. For starters, Miro 4 makes converting and syncing your music and video files to Android devices easy.

And not just your media, you can buy Android software from both Android Market and the Amazon Appstore and sync apps to your devices. The Amazon MP3 store and a bittorrent client are built-in. What’s best, the program works with your existing media libraries without any copying involved. Just point the application to your music and video folders (including the iTunes music library) and voila – your media automagically appears.  We’re just getting started, read on…

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When the search giant unveiled Chromebooks at the Google I/O developer conference earlier this month, presenters logged into these new Chrome OS-powered machines using the user name “Tom Rizzo”, a not-so-subtle reference to Microsoft’s senior director of the same name who is in charge of their online services business. NetworkWorld chatted with Rizzo who responded when briefed on Google’s demo, “Me logging into a Chromebook will never be a reality,” calling the Microsoft vs. Google spat “a little fun rivalry”. He also criticized Google’s claims that it expected three quarters of business users to ditch Windows-based notebooks for Chromebooks and Google’s cloud-based productivity tools:

Chromebooks don’t change the game at all from a productivity standpoint. Excel is just a million years ahead of what Google Docs provides.

I guess he didn’t get the memo. A netbook is “pretty much the same thing” as a Chromebook, he argued. And the following quote is perhaps the most headline-grabbing…

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Computer maker Asus, whose Eee Pad Transformer tablet-meets-computer became quite popular among techies, is teasing a new device set to be revealed at Computex 2011, which runs between May 31 and June 4 in Taipei. The work of the Asus Design Team, the slab features smooth lines, premium finish and a little bump with a clip. Check out three gorgeous close-ups below the fold, courtesy of Techinstyle.TV.

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Color us blue (no pun intended), but this has got to be one of the best AT&T television commercials yet. Dubbed “Spider”, it sports the new Samsung Infuse 4G said to have colors “so real that it’s almost unreal”. Why “Spider”, you ask. Just watch…

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mcr2uWkJkzI&w=670&h=411]
Notice how he simply grabs his shoe magically from under the table?

Acer is looking forward to shipping a million Honeycomb-driven Iconia Tab slates in the second quarter of this year, sources told Taiwanese trade publication DigiTimes Friday.

Acer has been taking delivery of Iconia tablet PCs eagerly from its production partners with the company’s global shipments of tablet PCs likely to reach one million units in the second quarter, according to sources in the upstream supply chain.

The sources back this claim by pointing out surging revenues at Acer’s touch sensor suppliers Cando and Sintek Photronics.

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[youtube=http://http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J0ZSRprwHu0&w=670&h=411]

The rise of social networks and the soon-to-happen explosion of NFC-enabled mobile devices holds an enormous potential to change our preconceived notions on just about everything. Imagine the not-so-distant-future when each of us might opt-in to have an ID chip implanted inside our body to beam public information about ourselves to nearby devices. The above concept video, entitled “Go for it”, depicts what the future of dating might be like.

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Online retailer Amazon just announced that Kindle books have surpassed print books in terms of sales. Folks are now buying more Kindle books than their hardcover and paperback counterparts combined. Amazon said that for every 100 print books customers have picked up since April 1, they have sold 105 Kindle books. The figure excludes free Kindle books and includes hardcover and paperback books where there is no Kindle edition. More amazing facts below the fold…

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Gartner is out with their first quarter 2011 mobile phone market survey. The results are astounding. The first quarter belonged to Google and everyone else was reduced to extras in an Android show. Both Apple and Google grew their respective share of the smartphone market, estimated at 100.8 million quarterly units – nearly double the 54.5 million units from the year-ago quarter. Smartphones grew 85 percent and cut into sales of regular handsets, accounting for almost one quarter (23.6 percent) of the 427.8 million handsets shipped during the first quarter.

Predictably, Android was the leading smartphone platform in the first quarter of 2011. And here comes your mind-boggling takeaway: More Android-powered smartphones were sold during the first quarter than the combined sales of Apple’s iPhone, RIM’s BlackBerrys, Microsoft Windows Phone smartphones and vendors belonging to the Other OS category. And that is worldwide, mind you. Go ahead, do the math yourself (the below table).

It’s fascinating that Microsoft and Symbian combined had three percentage points lower market share than Android. Also, while Apple doubled iPhone sales,  they barely gained any marketshare. This just shows that Android is gobbling up market share at a rapid pace, eating pretty much everyone’s lunch in the process…

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Jen-Hsun Huang, the CEO of graphics giant Nvidia, sees Android-driven tablets powered by his company’s speedy processors overtaking Apple’s iPad in about the same time-frame it took Android smartphones to beat the iPhone, he told Reuters:

The Android phone took only two and a half years to achieve the momentum that we’re talking about. I would expect the same thing on Honeycomb tablets.

The comment is a 180-degree turn from Huang’s previous analysis which blamed lackluster sales of Android tablets on the lack of software richness, sub-par marketing and high price points, to name a few. A Jefferies analysis (see tablet below the fold) echoes this sentiment, conceding that a small percentage of users are currently considering buying an Android tablet over iPad. Nevertheless, Android tablets are expected to catch up next year, the survey notes.

If Android slates are to zoom past Apple’s device, Huang now argues, more apps are needed, especially high-quality games and entertainment titles. He suggested that Android vendors iterate Honeycomb devices using Nvidia’s next-generation Tegra processor code-named Kal-El. Plugged-in sources describe the chip as a screamer…

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[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iQ48ZKAU2jw&w=670&h=411]

Just as Verizon Wireless announced Thursday launch of Sony Ericsson’s Xperia Play handset in the US, the New Zealand branch of the big red carrier tweeted Monday that the entire shipment headed to that country had been stolen.

Regret to advise the Xperia Play launch will be delayed. Major security breach. The shipment of phones has been stolen.

Turned out that was just a clumsy marketing gimmick that had cleverly exploited the whole Sony-versus-hackers brouhaha in an effort to drum up publicity ahead of the Xperia Play launch in New Zealand. To make the whole thing appear realistic, the carrier even released security footage, allegedly from the Vodafone store, seen above. They were “investigating” the theft, per this tweet:

Our fraud team are investigating the stolen Xperia Play phones and have released footage of the break-in. Can you help?

Needless to say, it opened a can of whoop ass…

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The Droid saga continues as Motorola Mobility issues a press release announcing the Droid X2 launch on the Verizon Wireless network next Thursday, May 26, 2011. The Droid X2 is “double the power, double the does”, Motorola wrote. The phone looks nearly identical from the outside to its predecessor, sporting a large 4.3-inch capacitive touchscreen display.

The innards have been improved with an eight-megapixel camera with HD video capture, a dual-core 1GHz processor. It will come with Android 2.2 pre-installed, to be updated to Android 2.3 Gingerbread. The handset will retail for $199.99 after a new two-year service agreement. The carrier will be accepting pre-orders beginning tomorrow, May 19, 2011. Catch the full press release below the fold.

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Barnes & Noble’s filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission that makes mention of “an announcement on May 24, 2011, regarding the launch of a new eReader device” has become official as the company has sent out press invites. The invitation sports clean design and reveals nothing beyond noting stating that “a special announcement” is scheduled for Tuesday, May 24, 2011.

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Next Issue Media, a joint venture of five major magazine publishers, is launching a long-awaited digital newsstand on Android tomorrow, May 19, 2011. Seven digital magazines packaged as downloadable Android apps will be available from day one: Esquire and Popular Mechanics from Hearst, Fitness and Parents from Meredith, The New Yorker from Condé Nast and Fortune and Time from Time Inc. Labeled an “early preview” release, the store will launch on Samsung Galaxy tablets on the Verizon network before rolling out to other Android devices later.

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[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2HrQbjPjbBA&w=670&h=411]

So how do you stand out in the crowded Android space? I know – let’s put a bunch of cats in a television commercial, Sprint’s marketing people must have said when pitching creative concepts for the Nexus S 4G campaign to their bosses. The resulting advert is cutesy and a bit mischievous, but not bad at all. Plus, you gotta love the closing line:

It’s the first phone that’s Google to the core with Sprint’s lightning fast 4G speed. It’s powerful enough to do just about anything, including filling the internet with more cats.

The cats theme runs throughout the campaign and on the Nexus S mini-site.

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Television maker Vizio wasn’t kidding when they announced Android smartphones and tablets at CES 2011 in January. According to Wireless Goodness,  their first Android-powered smartphone has received a blessing from the Federal Communications Commission. The device carries the VPHN1044G label, but they plan to sell it under the more user-friendly Vizio Phone moniker.

It’s a four-inch (854-by-480 pixels) Android superphone that comes with your regular perks, including a 1GHz processor, HDMI video output, microSD cards support and more. The FCC filing reveals support for the 850 and 1900 MHz bands, suggesting a launch on AT&T’s 3G network in the US.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R9RdNSpzPKc&w=670&h=411]

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PopCap Games, the maker of the popular Plants vs. Zombies game, has announced a deal with Amazon that will see Android ports of their popular titles released on Amazon’s Appstore for Android. Today, Chuzzle launched on the retailer’s mobile bazaar. Popular Plants vs. Zombies will arrive later this month, per the official press release. The good news doesn’t stop here…

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Nvidia CEO Huang Jen-Hsun blamed slow sales of Android slates to a multitude of factors ranging from the lack of expertise at retail, sub-par marketing, higher price points and software. Extending the opinion, Asian sources from notebook vendors warn that lack of content is to blame for weak demand for Android slates. It’s the software, stupid, they argue, reports DigiTimes.

The sources pointed out that most of the applications that are executable on Android 2.x are turned out to be un-executable on Android 3.0, while any application that can run on iPhone can be directly transfer to iPad for execution. Since there are only limited applications specifically designed for Android 3.0, it has significantly lagged demand of Android 3.0-based tablet PC.

“Apple would have achieved a much bigger market share than it already has if the player decided to wait”, the source admitted. Android 3.1 should resolve all those issues when it becomes available in the second half of this year, the source concluded. Most apps designed for Android 2.x smartphones apps either don’t scale well or “turn out to be un-executable on Android 3.0”, the source noted, blaming poor demand for Honeycomb tablets on a limited number of tablet-specific software experiences. Apple, of course, is employing quite the opposite tactics focused on promoting apps tailored to the iPad.

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Uh-oh, looks like Amazon is serious about getting on board the Android cluetrain. In fact, they most likely want a piece of the action in the Android space themselves. A tipster told AndroidMe that the online retail giant is planning an “entire family” of Android gadgets for this holiday shopping season.

This tip came from an industry insider with direct knowledge of the project. The information was shared with me in a recent face-to-face meeting and I believe the source to be trustworthy. It was also confirmed by a separate source who has provided reliable information in the past. As with most of my tipsters, they wish to remain anonymous.

Author Taylor Wimberly goes on to lay out the many reasons explaining Amazon’s motivation to compete in this crowded space. He’s got the point and here are just a few…

Update: BGR says:

we have been told that the “entry” level tablet, codenamed “Coyote” will be based on the NVIDIA Tegra 2 platform. The big boy? That’s codenamed “Hollywood” and will be based on the NVIDIA T30 “Kal-El” which will bring a screaming quad-core processor with a 500% performance increase over the dual-core Tegra 2.

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[youtube=http://http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ReH7zzj5GPc&w=670&h=411]

Google has been at the forefront of the HTML5 revolution which has been unfolding on the web. Look no further than the Chrome Experiments page which contains dozens of advanced HTML5 examples that will give you a pause. I blogged about some of the must-see examples which knocked my socks off. Nothing could prepare me for the latest demo. This stuff has just considerably raised the bar of what’s possible on the web.

The combination of HTML5/WebGL code and a GPU-enhanced browser with hardware-accelerated graphics like Google Chrome is what makes possible “Rome: 3 Dreams of Black”, a collaborative music video from Jack White, Norah Jones, Daniele Luppi and Danger Mouse. It’s the best WebGL showcase I’ve seen so far. Check it out in its entirety below the fold.

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