The upcoming Blackberry Slider (a/k/a “Mr. T”) is pictured below. Kudos to Salomondrin for Tweeting the tip back in December that the upcoming slider would be a portait, Palm Pre-like, slider. This isn’t the first time his predictions have turned out to be spot on. I posted a brief bit about it shortly after he tweeted due to his strong track record. BBLeaks.com posted up the photo and several others. Apparently, a video is on the way too.
Click to Enlarge
I’m starting a buzz campaign to bring Music Mondays from Twitter to Google Buzz. For those who unfamiliar with Music Mondays, people simply tweet the music they’ve been listening to lately to generate some Twitter activity and to help spread the news about good recording artists.
Music Mondays make more sense on Buzz than Twitter because you can embed YouTube videos directly into a buzz. Simply put “Music Monday” in your buzzes (hashtags on Buzz are for losers) and share your favorites. Maybe include a brief bit about why you like the song or how you discovered it.
My campaign is, admittedly, off to a very warm reception but a slow start because I only have 260 followers on my personal account and 124 on my blog account. Please consider rebuzzing this post with the buzz this link below or just buzz “Music Mondays are now on Google Buzz. Please post a YouTube video like this one…” To embed a YouTube video, just click on the insert link button in your buzz box and paste a YouTube URL into it.
My buzz tomorrow will be a terrific Beck music video with cool robots in it that I discovered on YouTube earlier today. Follow me on Buzz to see and hear it tomorrow. Click here to follow me.
UPDATE: If you want to search buzz for all Music Monday posts with videos, do the following search: “music monday has:videos”
Click to visit www.glideos.com
Transmedia Corporation’s “Glide OS 4.0″ is an advertising-free, cloud-based operating system. You can access it through any web browser (including mobile browsers) and through a proprietary desktop app (Windows/Linux and OS X flavors). It has all the bells and whistles of Google’s free cloud services (calendar, email, documents, spreadsheets, etc.) and some other services not offered by Google:
- 30 GB of free online storage in the “GDrive” and a desktop app to automatically sync directories on your computer and in the cloud.
- The best web-based image editor I have seen. While it’s not exactly PhotoShop or GIMP quality, it will do the trick for basic use.
- An online version of PowerPoint called “Presenter.”
- It’s very customizable, e.g. you can set wallpaper and other custom options.
Frankly, I’m not doing justice to the scope of offerings available in Glide OS 4.0. It’s truly a complete operating system that is remotely hosted. Glide OS 4.0 has been favorably reviewed by InformationWeek, PC World, CNET, eWeek and PC Magazine. Walter Mossberg of the Wall Street Journal and David Pogue of the New York Times both wrote rave reviews about it.
A cloud-based solution like Glide might be particularly appealing to those running Chrome OS on their netbooks (including the Flow variety I wrote about). Currently, there is nothing comparable though Office 2010 is supposed to have a cloud based version. As noted in many of the reviews of Glide, Microsoft is playing catch up with Transmedia’s free offerings. Glide OS 4.0 is completely free for up to 30 GB of storage. This would be more than sufficient for most and I intend to use it for my online backups. A 250 GB account runs $50 per year.
Check it out at http://glideos.com/.
[Thanks Brian]
Reuters recently ran an article about Microsoft shopping around for a mobile device manufacturer. Named as specific potential targets are RIM and Nokia. Apparently, Microsoft believes that the Apple model of vertically integrating handheld hardware and software would work well for Windows Mobile 7 Series, the operating system it recently unveiled at the Mobile World Congress.
If Microsoft acquired RIM, it would have tremendous penetration into the business consumer market for smartphones. Also, a takeover could make sense for RIM which is struggling to make its Blackberry operating system competitive. Specifically, the web browser needs work, although RIM is working on a WebKit web browser. Microsoft knows how to build a browser and I’ve read rumors that Windows Mobile 7 Series will have the be-all-end-all of mobile browsers. (Which may or may not be a great boost to WinMo… it’s, by all accounts, a little late to the party.) I’ve read on other blogs that Microsoft has tried courting RIM unsuccessfully several times (often citing unnamed sources).
Nokia has struggled in the smartphone market and even though it has killer hardware (like the Nokia N900), it has also struggled on the software side. I’ve heard great things about Maemo 5 but bugs in the OS lead to substantial delays and a miserable launch for the N900. Nokia would be a more expensive acquisition than RIM based on market caps, $49B vs. $38B. It also doesn’t have a strong presence in the U.S. market.
Another potential target is Palm which once dominated the pocket organizer wars but has slipped considerably in recent years. It’s unclear what tricks Palm management might have to resurrect the company because it did not attend the Mobile World Congress or unveil any new products in recent months (other than the spruced up Pre Plus and Pixi Plus, if you count those).
So, it’s not entirely clear who Microsoft wants to take to the prom but, at least according to some of the sources cited by Reuters, it’s planning on going. The Reuters article is available at: http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE61I54A20100219
I want to briefly plug Clicky web analytics. I haven’t received any compensation or free services for the plug.
I was a Google Analytics fan until I was introduced to Clicky. I use the free version on this blog and my professional blog and I’ve found it to be valuable in analyzing web traffic. The setup is easy. The interface is intuitive. Additionally, it offers many advantages over Google Analytics, including:
- Twitter analytics
- Dedicated iPhone and mobile version
- Alerts
- “Juicy details” about every single user, including reports about every click
- Visitor organizations, hostnames, IP addresses — the works.
A full chart comparing Get Clicky to the competition is available at: http://getclicky.com/ It’s roster of clients include the Boy Genius Report, Mashable and Smashing Magazine. And, it’s worth noting that you don’t have to forfeit Google Analytics to use Clicky. One site can run both tracking codes.
Check it out if you want to know more about your website or blog traffic. http://getclicky.com/
Last night Wired.Com posted up a good article that lays out a strategy Google could follow to dethrone iTunes as the leader in music distribution. Many of the suggestions involve leveraging the cloud and allowing users to stream their music purchases to their devices.
Everyone is buzzing about how to use Google Buzz and whether it will succeed. Some are still tweeting about privacy concerns. Everyone wants to know whether Facebook, Twitter and Google Buzz can coexist. In this post, I take a different approach. I begin with the assumption that Google Buzz will succeed and consider what effects that will have on the world of blogging and on more mainstream digital media. I conclude that Google Buzz will have profound effects that significantly differ from effects of any other social networking site that currently exists.
I don’t think I’ve ever had a post dedicated entirely to a Microsoft product but this is awesome. Below is a video from the TED conference which shows off the augmented reality features in Bing Maps. The video is long, around 8 minutes, but it gets better and better as it progresses.
[via Alden Torres on Google Buzz]
Beneath each post you will now find a list of all of the methods of reposting or rebroadcasting any post on Tech Bottle. Kudos of WordPress plugin “Light Social” for making this easy.
Google Translation for Android http://bit.ly/4Y1yVW
Apple has approved the first VOIP app for the iPhone which enables voice calls over a 3G data connection. iCall is the first VOIP app to be allowed into the App Store but expect a flood of new apps. Obviously, Skype for the iPhone will rank among the most popular of the VOIP apps.
Curiously, it is unclear whether the Google Voice app will ever be available on the iPhone. Google Voice currently uses traditional land lines to route calls. Apple has rejected it from the App Store claiming that duplicates the phone’s existing functionality and would confuse customers. Arguably, VOIP apps duplicate the phone’s functionality as well. I suggest that neither would actually confuse customers but would rip profits from AT&T. The Google Voice vs. Apple showdown is before the FCC now.
In the future, Google Voice may become a VOIP service. As I relayed back in November, Google acquired Gizmo5, a VOIP outfit, and will integrate Gizmo5 technology with Google Voice. When this happens, Apple may have no choice but to approve a Google Voice app. In the meantime, Google is coding around Apple’s restrictions and thumbing its nose at the App Store. Google Voice can be accessed via the iPhone browser at m.google.com/voice.
[First VOIP App Approved via Gizmodo]
Ok, so I’m a big fan of just about every Google product. For the record, however, I’ve been critical of the Google Voice team for not implementing certain features and I’ve also ripped on Google Docs. Notwithstanding, Google has hit a home run with it’s Google Reader app. I’ve previously pitched RSS (Really Simple Syndication) readers generally. They allow you to aggregate your favorite websites into a global inbox. Your favorite websites basically come to you when you subscribe to their RSS “feeds.” The amount of time you can save by reducing page loads and clicking around the web is astonishing. Continue reading »
Today’s New York Times has an interesting piece on people choosing common passwords for sensitive data. Apparently, the most popular passwords are:
I’m behind in my RSS reading but I’m slowly catching up on it. A few stories have caught my eye so far…
Unless you were born yesterday (which would really suck because of its proximity to Christmas), you already know that Google is fundamentally an advertising company. In 2008, Google generated over $21 billion dollars in revenue and over 95% of that revenue was generated by Google’s Adwords program. Year end numbers for 2009 will probably be at least as impressive. Google’s success, however, depends on it not remaining simply an advertising company.
