Every year Google hides a little three-letter codename deep in the bowels of Android to represent the latest version, and this year, as Android Policepoints out, it looks like the Mountain View company is going with NYC, or New York Cheesecake. Note, however, that this isn’t the actual name of the final release — that has yet to be decided — and that you’ll likely never hear of the company officially referring to the update by this name…
An interesting project has emerged this week that uses Google Maps to plot historic data from the New York Public Library’s digital collection of photographs taken by Percy Loomis Sperr between 1931 and 1942 and various other photographers between 1870 and 1970. The photos all depict New York City’s various streets and buildings and the OldNYC project aims to integrate those images into Google Maps (via LaughingSquid).
The Moto X Style — called Moto X Pure Edition in the US — phones we got to play with at the end of today’s event were obviously very pure Android and with their much larger displays and heavy batteries very much reminiscent of the Nexus 6 that I’m carrying around. The one big and important difference is the Sony 21MP shooter on the back that in limited testing makes all the difference.
The Wall Street Journal is reporting that Samsung is planning to soon create a large office in New York City. Located in Manhattan, the office would be “one of the largest” corporate expansions in New York City in recent years. Citing “multiple real estate executives familiar with the search,” the report claims that Samsung has recently started reaching out to landlords and developers in New York City. The inquires have been about obtaining 1 million square feet of space, which would hold between 5,000 and 7,000 employees.
Google recently participated in an informational meeting for companies interested in bringing free WiFi access to New York City. Other companies interested in such a venture include IBM, Samsung and Cisco, however it’s well-documented that the search giant wants to make internet access less challenging for people who are struggling to get online.
As the most populous city in the United States, New York City has a big transportation challenge on its hands. The arrival of the bike sharing system Citi Bike aims to solve that problem, but New Yorkers still need to be able to track down these bikes for the program to be useful. Enter City Ride for Glass, an upcoming app that aims to be a simple and effective way of finding Citi Bikes using Google Glass.
Google recently announced plans to expand its Google Fiber Gigabit internet and TV service beyond Kansas City & Austin to 34 more cities and it looks like it also has plans for New York City. Geek.com points us to a job listing looking for a regional sales manager based in New York that would “manage multiple teams that evangelize Google Fiber services to MDU (multi-dwelling apartments and condos) and large SMB owners.”
You will hire and manage a team that proactively reaches out and and articulates how Google Fiber Solutions can help make their work more productive. You will excel at team development, sales training and market strategy, while cultivating a strong base of new clients and working with fellow technical Googlers to devise solutions to meet customer needs.
Google has slowly been rolling out its Gigabit Google Fiber service starting with Kansas City and Austin since first unveiling Fiber back in 2012. In February, it announced plans for its biggest rollout yet including upcoming launches scheduled for Raleigh Durham, NC, Atlanta, San Jose, CA, Phoenix, AZ, Portland, and many surrounding areas. New York would be a big one to add to the list, but Google has yet to confirm any official plans.
Posted via Tweet, Samsung announced this morning that it’ll be live streaming the Galaxy S IV unveiling at Times Square in New York City. Samsung plans on starting the event at 7AM in the Big Apple on March 14th. If you can’t make the trip there though, you can live stream the event on Samsung’s Youtube channel the day of the event.
Samsung let New Yorkers experience the all-new Galaxy S III at a release event in Manhattan earlier this week, but it seemed the company’s primary goal was to announce a fresh, cutting-edge marketing campaign for its latest Android offering.
“We are launching the biggest marketing campaign in Samsung’s history,” bragged Chief Marking Officer Tom Pendleton.
He then discussed “never been done before” executions for the S III strategy, including 50 kiosks and 40,000 interactive posters that will surface around the country over the next few weeks. They will serve as stations for S III users to download free music, eBooks, and other content directly to their smartphones via Near Field Communications.
9to5Google already spotted two of Samsung’s interactive posters. The first ad is located in New York City’s Lower East Side and offers a free Goodie Mob and CeeLo Green song (as seen in the picture above).
The second ad is live at Port Authority in Manhattan. It is a giant screen, which is the size of a wall, and it shows dozens of Samsung Galaxy S IIIs rotating in air. Upon touching the screen, the display transitions to a different scene with three big Galaxy S III selections. Each option features downloadable content. A huge crowd surrounded the interactive poster, so it was hard to get a close look or take a picture.
Samsung is clearly taking interactive and marketing to a completely new level this summer; it even plans to run a 3D advertisement before blockbusters in 55 theaters across the United States. The ad is actually a Kinect-like game that detects audience movements as each viewer works together, waving their hands in the air, to control a large S III on the cinema’s screen.
AT&T SVP Larry Solomon told the Mashable audience that NYC would be getting AT&T’s LTE “sometime soon” (at 3:30).
Even with the background being sketchy, the math is in your favor NYCers. AT&T says it will cover 70 million customers in LTE by the end of the year. It is going to be hard to get there with their 15 markets if NYC isn’t one of them.
For good measure, AT&T was in NYC last week handing out to reviewers their impressive LTE smartphones the 4.5 inch HTC Vivid and Samsung Galaxy II Skyrocket. We’ve got both phones in hand but won’t be able to offer up a comprehensive review until NYC LTE is lit up (or I visit Silicon Valley for the holidays – whichever comes first)
