Microsoft has announced that the acquisition of Danger is now complete. Danger, for those not in the know, is the brains behind T-Mobile’s popular Sidekick device and provides one of the best OS on the market. Danger will be left alone in their Bay Area offices, but will join the Premium Mobile Experiences group at Microsoft. This group focuses on ‘consumer-facing mobile projects.’ “We imagine a mobile experience that embraces sharing and celebrating relationships and personal moments,” Ho (Corp VP of PMX) said. “Combining Danger and Microsoft talents together in the Premium Mobile Experiences team is how we’re going to deliver cool, new, fun mobile experiences to consumers. We want people to smile every time they look at their phone.” “At Danger, we created a fun and easy-to-use mobile experience for today’s Internet-savvy consumer,” Britt (co-founder of Danger) said. Hershenson (co-founder of Danger) added, “As we combine our team and technologies with Microsoft, we see a clear path to evolving that experience and delivering it to an even broader group of consumers.” Does this mean the demise of T-Mobile’s Sidekick line? I hope not. I have a soft spot for that device. → Read More
The Register’s Bill Ray has an article about what we might expect from Microsoft’s recent acquisition of Danger, maker of the popular Sidekick operating system. It seems that, according to Ray, Microsoft’s looking to shift away from Windows Mobile as a user interface towards Windows Mobile as a platform upon which developers can overlay their own shell-like user interfaces, a strategy evidenced by Microsoft’s interoperability announcement earlier today. He likens it to how Windows 3.1 gave way to a host of alternative interfaces. I clearly remember Packard Bell Navigator as one such shell. That oughta date me. Anyone else use Packard Bell Navigator? Microsoft may leverage Danger’s expertise in the proxy browsing and messaging areas that work so well on the Sidekick. I used the original Sidekick and the Sidekick II for quite a while and I miss the seamless synchronization of my e-mails and contacts to T-Mobile’s site. We might see something like that out of Microsoft in the near future. Why is Microsoft dancing with Danger? [The Register] → Read More
These Microsoft logo mashups are getting out of hand. Om Malik puts the Om in GigaOM so when he says, “The deal’s big sticker price is intriguing — leading me to believe that Microsoft wants to pull an Xbox on its mobile phone business,” I hit the lever on my office chair that makes it so it stays in the upright position, allowing me to give those words my full attention. → Read More
According to a recent Microsoft press release, “Microsoft Corp. today announced it has entered into an agreement to acquire Danger Inc., the company responsible for the software and services powering many popular consumer handsets.” I like the Sidekick software interface. I’m not crazy about the Windows Mobile interface. I’m hoping this means that the Danger interface will smarten up Windows Mobile and not that Windows Mobile will dumb down the Danger interface. Gotta be honest — didn’t see this one coming. → Read More
[photopress:blogger.jpg,full,center] The US Governemnt is staging a terrorist-like War Game, called “Cyber Storm”, to simulate an attack against our country’s infrastructure, ala Die Hard 4. Attacks would be carried out against transportation and utilities, using hijackers, hackers, and bloggers. Wait, what? Apparently Homeland Security is worried that us troublesome bloggers will reveal vital gas lines or something in the case of an attack, so we’re a threat. Watch out for bloggers! We can spout all kinds of stuff that the Terrorists can use to blow you up. We’re dangerous! This is such crap. U.S. Mock Disaster Drill: Trains, Planes and Bloggers [News Factor] → Read More
[photopress:subsat.jpg,full,left]The NSC has lost control of a satellite. It’s lost propulsion, and will crash into the Earth at some point, but nobody can say where or even when it will do so. It’s large, and will likely cause much damage, and there’s no way to stop it. Carry on, citizen! Dead spy satellite could hit Earth [MSNBC] → Read More
Had no idea Danger was in the hole $7.2 million. Most of us know Danger through the T-Mobile Sidekick brand, which utilizes the Palo Alto-based company’s software-as-service for data and Internet, but they make a few extra bucks for themselves in Europe and OZ with the hiptop brand. At the end of their fiscal year on September 30, Danger reported a loss of $28 million. The previous year’s loss was $21 million despite an increase in revenue to the tune of $56 million, which eclipsed the previous year by $7 million. With that much debt, which isn’t too bad, Danger is looking to raise a bit of working capital with an IPO that Reuters is reporting to be in the ballpark of $100 million. With the popularity of the Sidekick/Hiptop device, I figured they were making enough off of T-Mobile, Motorola and Sharp, but I guess not. It sort of makes sense considering that most start ups lean on private funding to keep them going. I wonder how much it will go for. Sidekick maker Danger to go IPO route [RCR Wireless News] → Read More
Not to sound like an old fart, but back when I was a kid we had to figure out how to build guns out or Legos ourselves, using rubber bands and gearing them for torque and speed. But today’s lazy youth can actually buy a book of blueprints on how to make guns, catapults, cannons, and laser rifles, with step-by-step instructions. Where will that leave the youth of today when the class war comes and all the books are burned by the Freemasons? Dead, that’s where. Learn to engineer, kids. Controversial new book teaches children how to make guns out of Lego [Daily Mail] → Read More
I have a thing for the iPhone, if you couldn’t tell. But before I drank the Kool-Aid, I was a Sidekick man. What does it mean to be a Sidekick man? It means you give up a lot to get great email and instant messaging services and few, if any, third-party applications and very little freedom. Huh. Kind of like the iPhone, except without the messaging. So when I got the LX last week, I wasn’t sure I would enjoy it. After all, I had already abandoned the SK3 and SK ID for the charming animations of the iPhone. So what if the iPhone didn’t have native AIM on the iPhone — there were a few apps that kind of worked. So what if the iPhone didn’t have a solid, real keyboard. I could handle that. So what if the iPhone wasn’t one of the best casual messaging phones on the market? It had some good points. Umm… It was covered in chrome? → Read More
The Danger Shuriken aka Sidekick LX aka Sidekick 4 has popped up on the FCC site and I’m just as disappointed as everyone else about the details. Based on model number, PV250 (SK3=PV200, SKiD=PV150), we know it’s the next incarnation in the family, but it lacks 3G support, which sort of makes sense because T-Mobile hasn’t pulled their head out of their ass long enough to do something about it. I was hoping it would be tucked away somewhere only to be unleashed later on. No such luck. A working prototype has been floating around since the latter part of May, which translates to no further hardware changes. The battery has been bumped up from the Sidekick 3, but that probably has some direct correlation with the new 3-inch screen. It essentially means the battery life will suck just as much as the SK3. The confidentiality agreement ends on Halloween. Look for it to drop in November. → Read More
Gizmodo has the scoop on the latest Sidekick, but there are a few glaring indicators that this could all be a sham. Let’s see if you can spot them. If this is all true and accurate then I hate to say it, but the latest Sidekick does absolutely nothing for me and I’m sure it won’t do much for you either. Sure, the outside is all shiny and sleek looking with a black and purple color scheme, but the innards don’t impress me one bit. The Q900 is looking at an October launch, but I highly doubt this is the true Sidekick Slide/4/Zante. Point out all the inaccuracies and I’ll see what’s laying around as a prize. Deal? → Read More
The crew at Hiptop3 has the scoop on a leaked document that reveals the release dates for the Zante aka Slide aka Motorola Q700 as well as the LE and LX editions. We’re still unsure what the LX and LE models are, but the focus is on the RAZResque device, which is slated for a Q3 launch. Upon closer inspection of the document I’d go out on a limb and say that it’s fake. The spelling errors themselves are a telltale sign, but who doesn’t make a mistake here and there? The LX and LE have respective release dates in Q4 of 2007 and Q2 of 2008, but chances are these are SDKs. Confusing isn’t it? → Read More
A few more details on the latest Danger device have trickled through and hit the Giz. Remember the Sidekick RAZR X PowerPoint slides that made the rounds a while back? This could possibly be the device I’ve been waiting for, but I thought that about the Sidekick 3, too. Sidekick 4 this is not, but, rather, another ‘interim’ device (iD ring a bell) until the Real Deal Holyfield is released. The specs look fairly impressive, but it still has a long ways to go before fanbois like me will be satisfied. → Read More
W-Fi could be a lot more dangerous to children’s health than previously thought, says a British health agency. The guy behind the call to arms, Sir William Stewart, points to evidence that shows signal strength from a Wi-Fi router at a distance of one meter is stronger than a cellphone tower’s at a distance of 100 meters. Or, in something I like to call “English,” Wi-Fi signals are a hell of a lot more powerful than cellphone signals and therefore could pose more of a threat. → Read More
Sidekick fans love their handsets. Paris was dismayed to learn she couldn’t take her bejeweled handheld into the clink with her. No bling bling in Sing Sing, P! Anyway, Slashgear today noted that some Danger fans found an internship listing on the Sidekick maker’s corporate Website that wants someone to “Formalize the Java Native Interface and glue layer for binding the BT serial support as a GPS provider of data”. Does this mean a GPS-Enabled Sidekick is on the way? We’re guessing no, but creating a standardized interface to work with existent GPS units should be a piece of cake, and is really a no-brainer. Future Sidekick to have GPS? [Slashgear] → Read More
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