The gPhone madness contest is still going strong. Remember to vote early and often for your favorite entrants and that we also count comments in the judging. Rich sends us his entry, a really freaking creepy idea involving social data mining and facial recognition. The Playa’s Bible web service is linked to Open Social for data mining, The guy takes a picture of a young lady in a local bar with his Gphone. He then syncs this image to the online webservice along with his current the zipcode. This zipcode can be taken from GPS or simply filled in with the phones keypad. The Playa’s Bible web service will query OpenSocial and retrieve every female profile picture from the area. The Playas Bible web service would use facial recognition to determine a list of who this female might be. The guy then selects his best guess and retrieves every piece of publicly available information on the female through Open Social. This information may be a lot or may not be so much, but it is no matter. The Playa’s bible will then use advanced algorithms to build a list of conversation starters, pickup lines, topics of discussion and similarities between yourself and the female. After being coached by the Playa’s bible, the guy is ready to approach the girl fully loaded with an arsenal of material. His chances of getting lucky are multiplied all due to little device called the Gphone. → Read More
The gPhone is definitely creating a series of aftershocks in the journalism world. Two days after the big announcement, people are still talking, and it’s not all good. Even the stuffy WSJ gets into the act, calling the gPhone Android a tech nightmare waiting to happen. The argument goes that all this open source nonsense will raise unseen security risks in secure environments of many corporations. Never mind that most cellphones these days have a camera, the Android phones have open source software, which means that anyone can write code for it. Panic! This is also the reason why there are exactly zero Fortune 500 companies using Linux in a business environment. Oh, wait, many, many F500 companies use Linux? Even though it’s open source and anyone can write programs for it? Oh, wait, that’s its strength? Well color me retarded. → Read More
My, if this isn’t the day of Google backlash. While we’re not highly keen on the whole Android idea as it stands, Steven Frank thinks it’s garbage: A 34-company committee couldn’t create a successful ham sandwich, much less a mobile application suite. It’s going to be some half-baked turd undoubtedly based on GPE since that’s, you know, better than starting from scratch, right? (Wrong.) And he basically says what we’re all thinking: that Google, with all its billions, could build an ARM compatible mobile application integrating all of Google’s properties and give it away in a heartbeat. Rather than working hard with also-rans and OEMs, make it as easy to install onto a WinMo phone as Google Toolbar and watch the mobile hits fly in. Or call HTC, ask for a GSM phone, install a very cool Google OS, and sell it on Google for $199. Watch as people snap them up and the carriers come to you, angling for the OS. This is the best part of his piece, though: You have NO CLUE why the iPhone is successful and highly sought after, do you? You think it’s all some sort of weird fluke. A market anomaly. That these millions of iPhone owners are going to wake up one morning and say OH SHIT this doesn’t have MMS, what was I thinking! How can such a technological abortion be popular? Come ON, Google, you know better. … Ditch those other 33 companies, put 20 of your smartest people on it, and you stand a fighting chance. Try Again [StevenF] → Read More
How did I miss LOLBOTS? Nokia and Symbian were behind school yesterday and Nokia was smoking cloves and Symbian was reading some book and then Nokia as all like “Did you see what Google did?” and Symbian was like “Uh huh Whatdafuk?” and Nokia was all like “Garr garrr I’m Androad” and Symbian was all like “I’m Anchoad” and then Symbian was like: “About every three months this year there has been a mobile Linux initiative of some sort launched. “It’s a bit like the common cold. It keeps coming round and then we go back to business. We don’t participate in these full stop. We make our own platform and we are focused on driving that into the mobile phone market at large ever more aggressively.” And the Nokia was like “Stuppppod!” and then both of them got busted coming back to class late and Nokia got suspended for smelling like smoke and they found his cloves. Symbian dismisses Google Android [BBC] → Read More
Here’s the deal: in order to celebrate the non-release of the gPhone, we’re asking you, our dear readers, to offer up some potential applications for the Android platform. They can be silly, smart, or stupid. Take this one, for example: Here’s an idea for an open source Gphone application that could make you a little cash: Turn your cell phone into a traffic camera. As you are out for your daily commute, and you notice an accident, traffic jam, or just a bit of bad weather, whip out your Gphone and take a snapshot. The phone will automatically triangulate your position (or use your phone’s built-in GPS, if you have one), and send the photo with coordinates to the Gtraffic server. The server then interprets your photo, and adds it to a real-time database of traffic information. It will send out alerts to other Gtraffic users, offering alternate routes if necessary. If your photo gets added to the database, you get a few cents added to your paypal account (or other, google-related online account). Extend the application into the lucrative field of bounty-hunting, and you could get a percentage of the reward if you snap a pic of a wanted felon! → Read More
Not the gPhone, but close. Welcome to a world where Androids don’t just help Leia get a message to Obiwan. Our slack-jawed faces are leaking happy juice due to the announcement of Google/OHA’s Android platform and to celebrate we’re giving away two unlocked Nokia N95s to the two best BFF posters of the week, based on popularity and number of votes. → Read More
http://images.operator11.com/swf/o11player.swf This “live” show didn’t turn out to be live after all due to some unforeseen technical glitches but let’s pretend, huh? → Read More
http://images.operator11.com/swf/o11player.swf Click here to read our live coverage of the Google Mobile OS. More info: Today, T-Mobile is participating, alongside Google and others, in the announcement of the Open Handset Alliance and Android, the first truly open and comprehensive platform for mobile devices. IM questions to me during the conference call and I’ll try to ask them. AIM screen name is johnbiggsny. Skype is johnnybnyc. → Read More
I’ll just quote this verbatim and I’ll be live blogging the call in a mere 30 minutes. I may have to eat my hat. GOOGLE, T-MOBILE, HTC, QUALCOMM AND MOTOROLA TO DISCUSS NEW OPEN PLATFORM FOR MOBILE DEVICES → Read More
“Kids talk about what their dream phone would do.” This is another promo video for the Open Handset Alliance, published on Google’s YouTube channel. If I had a magic phone [YouTube] → Read More
The creators of Android talk about their new open platform for mobile phones and the Open Handset Alliance. Introducing Android [YouTube] → Read More
Please don’t hold your breath on the Google Phone announcement: you’ll probably pass out and it won’t have been worth it. Google is set to “announce” a phone project — I hesitate to say product — today, partnering with HTC and Samsung along with a few other OEMs to supply phones with some sort of mysterious Google thing installed. I’m going to state some facts and then state my expert opinion, based on my concern that this is actually kind of boring. Oops. I blew my load right there, but do please read on. → Read More
After a brief repose from posting all things iPhone, our tips inbox was brimming — brimming, I say! — with news of the gPhone. Or gPhones. Or whatever Google is going to call it when it makes its announcement Monday. Yes, it’s coming. No, we’re not sure what it is. Yes, we’re excited about it. Word on the street, though, is that gPhone will actually be a platform carriers and handset makers can add to their phones. By having its widgets on a variety of mobiles with no restrictions from carriers means that phone-to-phone or phone-to-PC tasks get much easier. Standardization is a good thing. We’re also hearing rumors that gPhone will be ad-supported. The good: lower phone bills for gPhone users. The bad: ads before phone calls or in txt msgs. The Goog does a good job of keeping ads at a tolerable level, let’s hope that continues into our pockets. Google’s Mobile Plans To Be Revealed Monday [Information Week] → Read More
Although it appears that there won’t be any one singular Google Phone, there have apparently been some murmurings around the interconnected network that Chinese device manufacturer “E28″ has developed a phone that “has been pegged as being the likely core of the Gphone, with Google’s suite of applications closely integrated.” The thing runs Linux. Okay great. It also can connect to Wi-Fi networks and cellular networks. So can a lot of other phones. It seems weird to call any device THE Google Phone, though. I don’t think Google’s as interested in hardware partnerships as it is in getting its software on as many devices as possible so take this one with a grain of something. Google Phone revealed as E28 Linux handset! Well, maybe… [Tech Digest] → Read More
The Google Phone has replaced the iPhone. What I mean by that is all the rumors, innuendo and general nonsense that surrounded the iPhone will now be transplanted to the Google Phone. Today’s rumor comes to us by way of the Wall Street Journal. Sometime in the next two weeks, so the rumor goes, Google will announce a suite of software and “services,” whatever those are, corroborating earlier rumors that the Google Phone won’t be a phone at all. This means that, if everything works out, cellphone makers and carriers will be able to roll out (or at least announce) phones compatible with the new Google Phone software by mid-2008. Of particular interest to the Slashdot crowd, Google wants to make the phone completely open, letting any John Q. Public program whatever he wants. What, Apple worry? Google plan sees phones by mid-2008: report [Reuters/WSJ] → Read More
Don’t call it a phone? Not even a GPhone? ‘fraid not, according to yesterday’s International Herald Tribune. Yes, Google is working on a mobile phone project, and has been for some two years now, but it’s not an actual phone. The GPhone, it turns out, will be a Linux-based software suite that will be able to run other companies’ cellphones. How does this gel with what Biggs reported a few weeks ago? ::’I don’t know’ shoulder shrug:: → Read More
Scott “The Rock” Rockfeld sat down with InformationWeek to discuss the Google Phone, Google’s purchase of mobile spectrum, how great Google is, and how super Google is. His assessment? Google is stupid heads and Windows Mobile is on 11 million phones and Google is for dumb heads. The real money shot? Get ready… when asked what hot MS products are coming up — a real hardball question, to be sure — Rockfeld answered: Microsoft and its partners will be announcing and launching a number of innovative Windows Mobile products in the upcoming months. For example, our partners have already announced several new devices including the Palm Treo 500v in the UK, the Motorola Q9m through Verizon, and the Sprint PPC-6800, and there’s more on the way. Stay tuned. BAMMO! Outta the park! In your FACE! Q9m, baby. Q9m FTW. I wonder if the gPhone supports third-party apps? Microsoft Sounds Off On The gPhone And The FCC Spectrum Auction [InformationWeek] → Read More
An interesting new patent was published August 30 that would suggest that Google is developing a mobile phone payment system. The Text Message Payment patent details a system where by Google offers a mobile focused payments under the title of GPay. Examples of payment scenarios given in the patent include paying for goods from a vending machine, as well as purchasing items directly from offline retailers. Whilst it’s certainly possible that the GPay Mobile payments system could well be platform independent, given the very strong indication that Google is preparing to launch a mobile phone, GPay could end up as an exclusive GPhone offering, one that gives Google the jump over other mobile operators by enabling mobile payments natively from the handset. Mobile payment systems aren’t new; I can pay for parking locally via mobile phone now, however what Google is suggesting in the patent is something that is far broader, and perhaps more importantly independent of mobile phone carriers and their billing systems. Google competitor PayPal currently offers their own mobile payments system, but despite launching in March it hasn’t set the world on fire; Google on the other hand would have the advantage of embedding GPay in the GPhone. Thanks to Patrick for the tip. → Read More
In what appears to be an amalgam of rumor, innuendo, and just making shit up, Rediff India Abroad is saying that Google will launch something sometime — perhaps a fortnight from now? — in India and is in talks with Bharti Airtel and Vodafone Essar, two of India’s most popular carriers. In what sounds like Nigerian phishing scam, it appears that Google may or may not be provide a mobile something in India and it might not or might be a handset, a small computer, or a cybernetic turtle with a TRS-80 embedded where its digestive systems should be. → Read More
Todays completely unsubstantiated rumor comes from Rediff News, a usually well respected source of news based in India. Rediff is reporting that the Google Phone is set to be launched in 2 weeks time! The GPhone is said to simultaneously launch in both Europe and the United States, with the only thing standing in Google’s way being US regulatory approval. The report goes on to claim that Google is believed to be in talks with a number of Indian telcos. If speculation is any guidance, the certainty of there being some sort of Google mobile device in development is a given. The Register reported in March that a European Google executive confirmed the existence of the GPhone and other reports go back to 2006; Om Malik reporting in December that a Google phone was being developed for release in 2008. Engadget posted alleged pictures of the GPhone in January 07 (see pic) with notes claiming that the device was a button-less touchscreen phone that came with GPS built-in for pinpoint navigation around Google Maps. ZDNet wrote that the phone was said to be 3G with built in Wifi and was designed by Samsung. The Register again reported in early August that the GPhone would include 3G, Wifi and GPS, and that UK mobile operator Orange was in talks with Google to carry the device. Google has continued to deny rumors of the phones existence, but has taken a more public interest lately in the mobile phone sector, confirming that it was likely to bid for a slice of the soon to be released 700mhz spectrum in the United States. Google as a mobile phone operator would make a lot more sense if Google were also preparing a GPhone that was automatically fine tuned to work with Google’s variety of applicable services, including Gmail, Maps and Google Docs. Any Google phone will also be immediately compared to Apple’s iPhone. Whilst the iPhone provides an attractive package, it has so far only taken a small marketshare in the US cellular market, and is yet to have been released anywhere else in the world. A 3G (and therefore quicker) internet focused GPhone with a broad release worldwide could well present a strong competitor to Apple. → Read More
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