Netflix on the iPhone
We all knew this was coming since we already have it on the iPad but Netflix is now available down to the iPhone and iPod touch devices. Version 1.1 allows you to stream TV shows and movie streaming possible so go get it! AT&T, just wait until it’s over 3G…ouch
Netflix iPhone App Video from Netflix on Vimeo.
Sprint just suffered another blow today to their team. Kevin Packinham (Senior VP for 4G) just left the company effective August 16, 2010. The carrier said he was leaving to lead another company but declined to state the new company. Steve Elfman and product development VP Fared Adib will replace Kevin in the coming weeks.
Packingham leaving does leave a significant gap but left Sprint a mighty jewel with their next 4G phone Samsung Epic 4G. The Samsung Epic 4G, which has WiMAX and a high performance chip excels with a slide-out keyboard and a Super AMOLED screen. The Epic 4G is the only Galaxy S-based phone to have either 4G or a keyboard in it’s line. Although it costs a $250 (after rebate ouch), may help Sprint prevent customers from jumping to AT&T and eventually to Verizon.
This is Sprint’s 2nd departure in recent weeks as their staff has experienced significant high level departures. Sprint says it doesn’t see this as a problem.
Here are some interesting stats for the smartphone market.
Smartphones account for 25% of the mobile phone market.
RIM owns 33% of the smartphone market
Nokia saw a 41% increase in sales
But Android saw a 886% increase in sales
I’m very bearish on Nokia, Microsoft, and Blackberry at the moment but hopefully RIM launches a successful new update on it’s OS for 6.0 (gigaom)
Given that the U.S. currently has the largest smartphone user base — Canalys estimates 14.7 million smartphones were purchased in the U.S. last quarter — it’s easy to overlook the current king of smartphone sales globally: Nokia. In the second quarter of 2010, the Finnish phone-maker sold 23.8 million handsets. Nokia saw a 41 percent growth rate over the prior year’s second quarter sales, which sounds positive, but when compared to Android’s 886 percent gain, Nokia’s growth pales in comparison. The overall smartphone market is growing, which is lifting sales of nearly all. But some — like Android — are clearly growing far faster than others.
Bad news for blackberry users, good news for UAE’s spying division. I didn’t know this but I guess you can’t read blackberry messages because of their automatic encryption. Good job RIM! Too bad all those secret meetings and trade information is going to be leaked to the UAE. No privacy laws currently exist in the UAE.
At the heart of the battle is access to the data transmitted by BlackBerrys. RIM processes the information through a handful of secure Network Operations Centers around the world, meaning that most governments can’t access the data easily on their own.
Read more about it at the WSJ.
Taking a page from their novel video conferencing technology, iVisit spins off their technology to start a new service called LookTel which helps the visually impaired community identify and recognize objects, landmarks, tags, and text.
Doing all of this using video, the blind user can identify objects in real time instead of having to take photos and making sure they aim right. When I talked to the CEO about this, Orang Dialameh said “Using video was important to grab as many frames as possible to capture a good image for fast recognition.” Asking how this was done quickly over a phone, he said “it’s done by pairing the phone and connecting to a remote computer acting as the base station which helps aid in the processing of the image for recognition by using our ivisit video streaming solution”
Definitely a cool app that combines the needs of many features into one convenient application with built in accessibility
Here’s a video of the demo. To see them in action, visit their website at http://www.looktel.com
Who’s to blame in this mess? China says it’s Google who’s pulling the plug on authorization while Google had no comment on the postponement. Expect to see more news on this as it unfolds into other business units within Google.
BEIJING — Google on Tuesday postponed the launch of two mobile handsets in China, one week after threatening to leave the Asian giant over cyberattacks and censorship, Dow Jones Newswires reported.
The US company said in a statement to Dow Jones that the phones featuring Google’s Android operating system and developed in cooperation with Motorola and Samsung had been scheduled to be unveiled Wednesday with China Unicom.
The California-based Internet firm did not specify when or if the launch would take place.
A person familiar with the situation told Dow Jones the company felt it would be “irresponsible” to release the phones at the current time given the current uncertainty.
Representatives of Google were not immediately available to comment when contacted by AFP.
China 1 : Google 1
In another strange turn of events in the app approval process for the iPhone, Apple has given the green light to a new application that supposdly allows video recording on non iPhone 3Gs models. This means that the phone was not limited by hardware but software. For $0.99 cents, you can download an app that basically allows the same functionality as the iPhone 3GS for video recording. Hurray! One less reason to upgrade to the 3GS or jailbreak…
Read more about it here:
http://theappleblog.com/2009/12/15/apple-approves-video-recording-app-for-iphone-2g-and-3g/
Nexus One - Google Phone on Android
Available online directly from Google.com itself, this phone will deliver a complete Android 2.1 experience to new users with a powerful Qualcomm Snapdragon processor. Look out Apple, this phone is going to knock your socks off… There is no contract and the device will be priced accordingly. This is a similar model to Sony Ericsson and Nokia but who knows, Google might actually change consumer buying habits…
The phone, called Nexus One, was designed inside Google and will be sold, at least initially, without being subsidized by a wireless partner, these people said. It is the latest sign of the Internet giant’s ever-broadening wireless ambitions as Google hunts for ways to expand its Internet services beyond computers. The move, details of which were first reported by The Wall Street Journal on … - Wall Street Journal
How scary is it when a phone company gives up your data (GPS mainly) to authorities without a warrant? Sprint! Wake up! This is a big potential disaster for a company already bleeding in the mobile market. 8 million requests in 13 months by law enforcement officers. Sprint is rumored to have over 110 employees whose sole purpose is to aide in this practice without warrant or permission from the user.
News broke like it was hot about a rumored video chat application approved on Apple. Now hold on one minute here… Didn’t we already invent this back in 2002? How does this become news AGAIN. Just because it works on an iPhone, it turned the industry upside down… I guess if it’s not on the iPhone, it never existed. Let me show you a company that already did this… secret post coming soon…
Fring—a free chat client for the iPhone that supports most standards—has been updated to support video conferencing on the iPhone, using Wi-Fi. It works on Fring to Fring, and Skype to Fring. Unfortunately, it’s not bi-directional. You would be able to see whoever is calling you from a desktop, but you won’t be able to transmit your image, even if you have the 3G videoconferencing kit. The reason is a physical one, according to the developer: The iPhone doesn’t have a front camera, so you can’t do face to face. - Gizmodo