Technknowledge

Yelp's first foray on Google's Android phones wasn't much to look at.

The initial feature set of Yelp's business review app for Android, which debuted December 7, was minimalist. It contained enough features--read-only access to Yelp.com, click-to-call, and a hyperlink to get directions from the browser or Google Maps--to avoid a user riot, but one would hardly call it the answer to Yelp's iPhone app.

On Tuesday, Yelp is making good on its promise to quickly pad the app's features. Version 1.2, an update available through the Android Market app on your smartphone, now lets you upload pictures from your Android phone to Yelp's site.

If you're meeting someone at a restaurant, bar, or museum, you can now share Yelp's business listing with others over SMS, e-mail, Facebook, and other third-party apps you may have installed on your phone, like a Twitter service. As a third addition, you're also free to sign in to your Yelp profile from the smartphone.

These changes may seem like small potatoes at first--you still can't add your own rating, write tips, or review a place from the phone--but they reverse two of our complaints. Yelp tells us we should expect to see more interactive features in early 2010, like drafting a review for later publishing, and bookmarking a business.
Originally posted at Android Atlas

The "smartbook" aspires to put the smartphone into the laptop. Will it be able to elevate an Apple iPhone or Motorola Droid-like experience to a larger device, or is it just more marketing mumbo-jumbo?

Two companies are hoping that the smartbook will turn out to be more than just another quickly-forgotten device sales pitch. Qualcomm and Freescale, which are both supplying key silicon technology for the devices, are pushing to make smartbooks different enough from laptops--and Netbooks--that consumers will take notice.
Qualcomm CEO Paul Jacobs holds the Lenovo smartbook which will appear at CES

Qualcomm CEO Paul Jacobs holds the Lenovo smartbook, which will appear at CES in January.
(Credit: Qualcomm)

The first tangible evidence of smartbooks to come will be seen at the Consumer Electronics Show in January, where Lenovo, among others, is expected to show, if not roll out, smartbook designs.

One pesky question won't go away, however. Why go out of the way to call it a smartbook? Doesn't Netbook suffice? (And it can potentially be very confusing for consumers since both terms have "book" in them.) On one level, the nomenclature choice is simply to counter the Microsoft-Intel Netbook juggernaut: Another Netbook among dozens already on the market won't draw much attention.

But at a deeper level, the two companies are trying to make the smartbook substantively different from a Netbook. Qualcomm sees it, in essence, as a large smartphone, which leaves the outdated Windows desktop experience in the dust. "A Netbook in our view is just a cheap laptop that runs Windows. We see the smartbook cannibalizing the Netbook. .

Online video-streaming site Ustream announced on Wednesday that a mobile app that allows users to view Ustream content is available now in the Android Market.

According to Ustream, the app, dubbbed Android Viewer, allows users to watch any show on the site over Wi-Fi or 3G. The app works with

Android software versions 1.5 and up. It also includes a chat function, allowing users to communicate with others who are also watching the show.

This isn't the first time Ustream has released an application for Android. The company already offers the Android Broadcaster, which allows users to stream a show to viewers from their Android-based gadget.

Those looking to try out Ustream's new Android app can download it for free from the Android market.

MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif.--Google's dual-pronged operating-system strategy will likely produce a single OS down the road, according to Google co-founder Sergey Brin.

Many Google observers were puzzled when the company announced plans for Chrome OS in July, coming amid growing acceptance of the company's Android operating-system project as a smartphone and Netbook OS. After all, why design an open-source operating system with the goal of reinventing the personal computing experience when you're currently developing another open-source operating system with the goal of reinventing the mobile computing experience?

Google executives, including CEO Eric Schmidt, have downplayed the conflict ever since, asking for time to let the projects evolve. And a few days after Chrome OS was revealed, Android chief Andy Rubin said device makers "need different technology for different products," explaining that Android has a lot of unique code that makes it suitable for use in a phone and Chrome has unique benefits of its own.

But Brin, speaking informally to reporters after the company's Chrome OS presentation on Thursday, said "Android and Chrome will likely converge over time," citing among other things the common Linux and Webkit code base present in both projects.

It's not clear when Google thinks it might want to merge the projects, but it seems to be eyeing a future in which the smartphones currently served by Android meld into the Netbooks Google has in mind for Chrome OS. Of course, Brin's vision might not necessarily be shared by all members of the Google management team.

"As Sundar [Pichai, Google's vice president of product management] said in his presentation, we're reaching a perfect storm of converging trends where computers are behaving more like mobile devices, and phones are behaving more like small computers," Google said in a statement in response to questions about how and when the two projects would merge. "Having two open source operating systems from Google provides both users and device manufacturers with more choice and helps contribute a wealth of new code to the open source community."

This also allows Google to pick and choose the best ideas to emerge from each project, setting up a bit of friendly internal competition to develop new operating-system technologies. The main difference is that while Android is a shipping product, Chrome OS is still very much in the research stage, with devices not expected until late 2010.

It's way too early to know how that pending convergence will affect development for the different operating systems, as it seems pretty clear Google is spending most of its time at the moment building out each one separately.

But Brin--no idle bystander--believes at some point, Google will emerge with one next-generation operating system.
Originally posted at Relevant Results

Motorola's handset business has been down in the dumps of late, like Luke Skywalker stuck in the Death Star trash compactor, with the walls slowly closing in ready to crush. In Star Wars, Luke had R2-D2 to save him from oblivion, and in a similar vein, Motorola has turned to an Android to save the day — Google's Android. Can Motorola escape its recent turmoil, blow up the Death Star and put an end to the tyranny of the evil Emperor? Its fate rests with the Motorola Dext.
Showing its softer side

Motorola unveiled its first Android in San Francisco last week as a T-Mobile exclusive under the name Motorola Cliq, just before announcing it would release the same phone outside the US as the Dext. From a distance it seems like Motorola has approached this phone in the right way, focusing on software rather than trying to outdo Nokia and Sony Ericsson on hardware specs.

The Dext will be built from a respectable list of components. Its 3.1-inch touchscreen is coupled with a full QWERTY keyboard, it has HSDPA, Wi-Fi, GPS and sports a flashless 5-megapixel camera. Motorola has opted for a five-way nav pad under the slide, which could cramp up the rest of the keyboard, but we'll have to wait to see if this is a problem.
Socially acceptable

The big news is the introduction of the Motoblur UI. Customised interfaces is one of the things we love about Android, and Motorola's looks like a winner with its focus squarely on social media. Similar to the Palm Pre and HTC's Sense UI for Android, Motoblur will sync contacts from your favourite social networking sites, like Facebook, with your phone's address book, keeping track of changes to user profile images.

Motoblur also comes packed to the rafters with home screen widgets, allowing you to monitor your friends' updates and tweets without having to open an app or link to a web page. While you're gawking at their recent activity you can comment or update your own status, again without having to leave the home screen.

Also included with the software is an online backup location for all of your private details and the ability to remotely wipe the phone. If you lose your phone you can activate a GPS tracking service, and after you've recovered the phone you can backup the data you remotely wiped directly from the Motorola server.

The Motorola Dext may not have the design to set hearts aflutter, but Motorola's commitment to software shows promise for the future. There's no firm yet as to an Australian release date, so stay tuned for news as it comes to hand. For now, take a peek at the launch video posted by our colleagues in the US.

If news of the imminent Motorola Droid announcement wasn't exciting enough for Android fans, it looks like Sony Ericsson is set to make a similar claim.

Could it be?

Though the message on the Sony Ericsson website isn't Android specific, if there's any upcoming SE handsets capable of "crossing the line" between the extraordinary and the magical (cue eye-rolling) it would have to be the upcoming Xperia X3. We first saw leaks of the X3's interface back in July, followed by a leak on the website of online retailer Expansys. Details are still scarce, but rumours suggest that the X3 will run Android on a 1GHz Snapdragon processor, and if it's released after the Moto Droid then we assume it will run on version 2.0 of the Android OS — a powerful combination indeed.

Stay tuned for more details on 3 November, and cross your fingers this is in fact the X3 and not a new range of stereo headphones.

Windows Mobile lost 28 percent of its smartphone market share between last year's third quarter and this year's third quarter, according to market researcher Gartner.

Figures released Thursday by Gartner show that Microsoft's mobile OS had 11 percent of the global smartphone market in Q3 2008. A year later, it had 7.9 percent. Meanwhile, the iPhone's share rose from 12.9 percent to 17.1 percent, and Research In Motion's share jumped from 16 percent to 20.8 percent.

Symbian's share fell from 49.7 percent to 44.6 percent over the same period--a 10 percent drop. The open-source Android OS from Google had no market share in Q3 2008 because it had only recently been introduced. In Q3 2009, however, it had 3.9 percent share.

"From one side, the market is going open source," Gartner analyst Roberta Cozza said. "On the other side, they have more closed environments like Apple and RIM. Microsoft is caught in the middle. They have to think hard [about] what they can do."

Read more of "Windows Mobile loses nearly a third of market share" at ZDNet UK.