Find: Amazon’s Kindle Fire UI: it’s Android, but not quite

Media focused, but with email. Good detail here. 

Amazon’s Kindle Fire UI: it’s Android, but not quite

Amazon’s new 7-inch, $199 Kindle Fire tablet technically runs on Android, but it’s not the user experience you might expect — rather than the typical array of user-configurable homescreens, the main [...]

Find: Amazon introduces Silk: a cloud-based browser

This sort of thing is the future for all mobile devices, tho most are not as tightly coupled as these. 

Power reduction and just plain efficiency will drive other devices this way too. 

Amazon introduces Silk: a cloud-based browser (update: video!)

In addition to heavily skinning Android, Amazon is rolling its own web browser for its new Kindle Fire tablet. They’re calling Silk a “split” browser, with half of the work [...]

Find: Amazon Kindle Fire price and specs revealed: 7-inch IPS display, dual-core processor, $199

The kinditab. No 3g, no front cam. But very cheap, and color!

Amazon Kindle Fire price and specs revealed: 7-inch IPS display, dual-core processor, $199

The $199 Amazon Kindle Fire has gotten its announcement a little early, and not from Amazon at all. Bloomberg, citing Amazon executives, reports that the Kindle Fire is a 7-inch [...]

Find: Apple wants to 'talk iPhone' on October 4th

Find: Windows Phone 7.5 Mango review

Find: One in Three Texters Would Rather Text Than Talk

Interesting pew survey on mobiles

One in Three Texters Would Rather Text Than Talk

Nearly three out of four Americans send text messages on the phone and among those who do, 31 percent prefer texting to talking, according to a study released Monday by the Pew Research Center.

Find: I.T. Departments Lose Their Clout Over Phone Choices

This is a big part of rims problem. 

I.T. Departments Lose Their Clout Over Phone Choices

A survey by Forrester Research found that 48 percent of information workers buy smartphones for work without considering what their I.T. department supports.

Find: Kal-El Has Five Cores, Not Four: NVIDIA Reveals the Companion Core

Late with tegra 3. Will it be a success without a new os as a launch partner? 

Kal-El Has Five Cores, Not Four: NVIDIA Reveals the Companion Core


Last week NVIDIA provided an update on its Tegra SoC roadmap. Kal-El, its third generation SoC (likely to launch as Tegra 3) has been delayed by a couple of months. NVIDIA originally expected the first Kal-El tablets would arrive in August, but now it's looking like sometime in Q4. Kal-El's successor, Wayne, has also been pushed back until late 2012/early 2013. In between these two SoCs is a new part dubbed Kal-El+. It's unclear if Kal-El+ will be a process shrink or just higher clocks/larger die on 40nm.



Find: Windows 8 In-Depth, Part 1: The Metro UI


Windows 8 In-Depth, Part 1: The Metro UI [Windows 8]

Windows 8 In-Depth, Part 1: The Metro UIWe've taken a first look at Windows 8, but this week, we'll be going in depth on some of the big, new changes coming in Microsoft's next version of Windows. Today, we're looking at the new, spiffy Metro UI.

Find: Google Wallet review: photos, videos, and availability

First in the wild sighting. Sounds good. 

Google Wallet review: photos, videos, and availability

After a reveal back in May and the promise of a summer launch in New York and San Francisco, Google and its partners have started rolling out an update to [...]

Dev: Recapping TimesOpen: Innovating Developer Culture

I like foursquares teamlets and standing meetings. 

Recapping TimesOpen: Innovating Developer Culture

The second TimesOpen of 2011 on Innovating Developer Culture took place last Wednesday. The program was a departure from the usual code-heavy fare the meetings are known for. An expert on organization culture change, Jessica Lawrence, from the New York Tech Meetup, joined engineering manager, Ken Little from Etsy, and Foursquare co-founder, Naveen Selvadurai.

Find: Windows 8 Metro-style Internet Explorer 10 doesn’t support Flash

No flash on win8 mobile ui. Flash is in trouble. 

Windows 8 Metro-style Internet Explorer 10 doesn’t support Flash (hands-on video)

Well the presence of two versions of Internet Explorer in Windows 8 is certainly making a bit more sense today — Microsoft has said that the Metro version of IE10 [...]

Find: iPhone 4 demand remains strong while anticipation for iPhone 5 grows

Apple on an amazing tear. 2/3 of its income from iPad iPhone.

iPhone 4 demand remains strong while anticipation for iPhone 5 grows





Find: Intel demos Android 2.3 on a Medfield smartphone prototype

Android on intel, windows on arm... What's next? Windows on an android vm?

Intel demos Android 2.3 on a Medfield smartphone prototype






Find: Report on tablet growth shows market is ripe for iPad competitor


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Report on tablet growth shows market is ripe for iPad competitor





Apple not only continues to dominate the global tablet market, its share of the market continues to grow while Android's slips. According to the second quarter numbers from market research firm IDC, the introduction of the iPad 2 combined with RIM's entrance into the market meant good things for overall shipments—which rose by 88.9 percent between the first and second quarters, or 303.8 percent year-over-year. The data shows that the market is ripe for a solid iPad competitor, too, possibly opening the door for Microsoft and its Windows 8 tablets.

IDC says that Apple's share of the global tablet market was 68.3 percent during the second quarter of 2011, up from 65.7 percent in the previous quarter. RIM entered the market during the second quarter as well, placing its initial market share at 4.9 percent with the PlayBook. Android-based tablets, which previously held 34 percent of the market during the first quarter of the year, fell to 26.8 percent in the second quarter.

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Find: The Updated Tegra Roadmap: Kal-El+ in 2012, Wayne in Late 2012/Early 2013

Find: August browser stats: Safari dominates mobile browsing


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August browser stats: Safari dominates mobile browsing




Our browser stats post is late this month. The source we normally use, Net Market Share, has changed the way it reports its data. This is good and bad. Mostly good, but it took extra time to retrieve the data and then decide what to do with it.

The good part is that we now have separate statistics for mobile browsers and desktop browsers. This answers long-standing demands to break this information out to take a closer look at that small but increasingly important market. The bad part is that the new figures are much harder to compare to historic ones; Net Market Share has completely separated mobile usage from desktop usage.


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Viz: Have Our Email Viewing Habits Changed?

To answer the q, yes: more mobile mail, less webmail. Desktop mail still largest and steady. Gmail stealing from hot ymail. 
Not sure pie series are best for change over time. And bubble pairs? Really. 
Cool data tho: too bad it's proprietary.

Have Our Email Viewing Habits Changed?






Find: Smartphones Outstrip Feature Phones for First Time in Western Europe as Android Sees Strong Growth in 2Q11, Says IDC

More smart than feature phones sold for first time in Europe. Us a bit behind in this respect.

Smartphones Outstrip Feature Phones for First Time in Western Europe as Android Sees Strong Growth in 2Q11, Says IDC

Western European feature phone shipments continued to decline sharply in 2Q11 as consumers increasingly move to smartphones, according to the latest European Mobile Phone Tracker from International Data Corporation (IDC). Feature phone shipments were down 29% to 20.4 million units in 2Q11, while smartphone shipments increased 48% to 21.8 million units from a year ago. The total Western European mobile phone market, however, declined 3% year on year to 42.2 million units in the quarter, according to IDC.

Find: NVIDIA Announces "Grey", First Tegra SoC with Integrated Baseband Due in 2012

Now nvidia *and* qualcomm integrate compute and wireless

NVIDIA Announces "Grey", First Tegra SoC with Integrated Baseband Due in 2012

Find: The Future Is Calling, AT&T, And It’s Not T-Mobile

Abell is right: wireless is the new railroad, and where is the new Vanderbilt? Especially in the us. If tmobile is only worth 3b of wireless spending, Att shouldnt even be considering a purchase.

The Future Is Calling, AT&T, And It’s Not T-Mobile


The proposed AT&T/T-Mobile merger is shaping up to be an iconic business case saga and a judicial milestone. Who would have thought that nearly 40 years after the U.S. Department of Justice convinced a judge to break up “Ma Bell” that the DoJ might be able to convince another judge to tell that same company you can’t get too big again?

But of course AT&T can get big again, and become so dominant again that it is a feared monopoly that must be dealt with — if it should be so lucky. But getting there will take build, not buy.

Getting so large that you could control a market to the real or potential peril of the consuming public happened a lot in the industrial age, with railroads and oil, and even the movie business, which was ordered in 1948 to divest itself of theaters. But that was at a snail’s pace. These days eyebrows are raised by the Microsofts and Apples and Googles of the world who manage, in what seems like a blink of an eye, to provide goods or services so many people want that competitors have a hard time keeping up.

Unlike the industrial age, it seems like anyone with the right idea and execution (and garage) can do it. Who could have imagined Apple would become the most significant handset maker in the world. Frankly, who could have imagined Apple at all?. Or that Google would come up with mobile phone software that now sets the pace? Or even that Microsoft, when it decided it wanted to, would choke investor-beloved Netscape to death in no time?

Mergers can be a fast way of taking the lead or getting back on track. But they seem better suited for a zero-sum game, as when Sirius and XM radio tied up so satellite radio wouldn’t die because there wasn’t really room for two players at that stage of the tech’s evolution. Or when Thompson and Reuters combined to become as big as Bloomberg had become.

On the Internet, we are at the leading edge of a land grab, a gold rush, oil mania [insert cliche here]. There is absolutely no doubt that wireless is going to be the most important medium in the history of this world. There is already an insatiable appetite for it among the haves, which are largely in the Western world and concentrated in urban centers, and who will only be wanting more/faster/cheaper.

And then there is the rest of this planet which isn’t nearly there yet but will have to get there. It just will have to.

It seems unthinkable now, but we didn’t really know that the Internet would resonate. It had been around for more than two decades before AOL started minting customers. Then the World Wide Web provided an “aha!” moment to the indifferent masses. We didn’t really know that “expensive” broadband would be so widely adopted. But we absolu...
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Find: Nvidia CEO: mobile chips to be a $20b business by 2015, new processor coming for Windows 8

Nvidia is thinking long term, unlike ati and intel. We will see what the new ati CEO does. 

Nvidia CEO: mobile chips to be a $20b business by 2015, new processor coming for Windows 8

“If you don’t have a mobile strategy you are in deep turd.” That’s how Nvidia’s CEO Jen-Hsun Huang ended a meeting this afternoon with a few select members of the [...]

Find: Samsung quad-core Windows 8 tablet ready for BUILD giveaway?


Samsung quad-core Windows 8 tablet ready for BUILD giveaway?

The first Windows 8 tablet looks set to be revealed with the help of Samsung at Microsoft’s BUILD developers’ conference next week. And if we had to guess, it’ll likely [...]

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Find: Netflix now supports all Android 2.2 and 2.3 devices

Netflix for everyone, anywhere (pretty much)

Netflix now supports all Android 2.2 and 2.3 devices

After some months of only supporting a few select Android devices, Netflix has rolled out a new update that should work on all Android smartphones running Froyo or Gingerbread. According [...]

Find: Designing for Metro style and the desktop

On merging tablet and desktop ui.

Designing for Metro style and the desktop

We thought it would be good to take a moment to talk about where we are heading in terms of the user interface of Windows 8.

Event: iPhone Design and User Experience with Josh Clark


iPhone Design and User Experience with Josh Clark


Early bird pricing - $50.00 for members. Register by September 16, 2011

From idea to polished pixel, learn to create an iPhone app that delights. Discover how to
conceive and refine your app’s design in tune with the needs of a mobile audience—and their
fingers and thumbs. This course teaches participants how to “think iPhone” to plan and create
app interfaces in tune with the psychology, culture, ergonomics, and context of an audience on
the go.



Experienced designers and newcomers alike will uncover the shifts in mindset andtechnique required to craft a great app. This course isn’t (only) for geeks. It’s for everyoneinvolved in the app design process—designers, programmers, managers, marketers, clients.Participants will equip themselves to ask the right questions (and find the right answers) tomake aesthetic, technical, and usability decisions that will make their apps a pleasure to use.

Data: CIA World Factbook


App Smart Extra: CIA World Factbook Apps

The Central Intelligence Agency's World Factbook, a free global reference book, is available on smartphones through a variety of apps.
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Data: Excavating Your iPhone's Past

Interesting data source and app idea.

Excavating Your iPhone's Past

After a glitch erased my iPhone, I found a way to extract all my old text messages.
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Find: Mobile > Web Soon in Ad Spend

via (title unknown) by Charles Newark-French on 8/31/11

Smartphones app usage, facilitated by explosive iOS and Android device adoption, has created among the fastest-growing media channels in the history of consumer technology.  Flurry estimates that, worldwide, over 600 thousand apps are available for over 350 million iOS and Android devices.  On average, consumers have downloaded over 65 apps per device.

While micro-transaction models, largely associated with free-to-play games, have proven the most lucrative business model for iOS and Android apps, there have been big bets placed on advertising.  In addition to its own iAd initiative, Apple acquired Quattro, a mobile ad network, for $275 million in January 2010.  This was shortly after Google announced its intention to acquire Admob, a rival ad network, for $750 million in November 2009.

In June 2011, Gartner projected that mobile advertising revenue would double to $3.3 billion worldwide in 2011, and grow from around $300 million to over $700 million in 2010 in North America.   eMarketer, a research firm, predicts that U.S. mobile ad spending will top $1.1 billion this year.

In this report, Flurry focuses on the size and growth of available advertising inventory within iOS and Android applications.  We used data from over 100,000 applications tracked by Flurry to estimate the size of this media channel.  The chart below shows that U.S. app inventory is not only growing at a staggering rate, but also poised to absorb the equivalent of the entire U.S. Internet display advertising spend by the end of this year.

USappInventory vs USonlineDisplayAdSpend resized 600

Reviewing the chart, we see that U.S. mobile app inventory has grown aggressively over the last year.  With its growth trajectory, it will be able to absorb the entire U.S. online display ad spend by the end of the year.  Another way to look at this is that, in approximately two years, mobile app inventory is growing so aggressively that it could easily meet the demand of a mature, 15-year-old form of online advertising.

To arrive at these figures, we first tracked the average number of ads shown per application session, which we found to be 4.3.  The average application session is 4.2 minutes.  For reference, the average session length of a website is just under 1 minute.  We then looked at the number of sessions.   Flurry tracks about 20% of all sessions in the market, and so we grew our numbers accordingly to come up with a market size.

We compared this inventory with the net spend on display advertising in the US. The US market currently spends a little over $12bn per annum on online display advertising.  We assumed a conservative CPM (cost per 1000 impressions) of $2.50 for mobile application inventory.   As a point of reference, a typical 30 second video on a large video streaming website such as Hulu has a CPM of $10-$15.

We at Flurry see four reasons why the market is growing at such a fast rate:

1) Smartphone growth – over a million smartphone devices are currently being activated on a daily basis

2) Publisher growth – The App store now has over 400,000 apps in the market and Android, with over 200,000, is catching up quickly

3) Session use growth - Flurry has previously found that smartphone users now spend more time in mobile apps per day than the average Internet users spends online.

4) Publisher integration of ads – with larger screens, targeting, and increased adoption of mobile applications, more publishers are integrating ads into their apps

Not only is inventory growing, but Flurry has also found that the average user of a smartphone is a very attractive target for advertisers. With a sample of more than 60,000 app users, we used location data and zip code statistics available from the U.S. Census Bureau to understand their demographics. On average, smartphone users are better educated and earn higher household incomes than the average of the U.S. population.

HHI smartphone v USaverage resized 600

Additionally, looking at age and gender, we find that U.S. smartphone app users cluster into younger age groups and trend slightly more female.

Age and Gender Smartphone v USaverage resized 600

In 1994, Hotwired.com was the first company to start selling display advertising in large quantities on the Internet.  Back then, it took over six years for advertisers to embrace this model.  For mobile apps, less than four years into their growth cycle, a critical mass of highly attractive consumers has been achieved. With growing awareness by brands and advertising agencies, we now expect digital advertising on mobile to take off in earnest.


Find: Rent Out Your Toilet with Cloo'

Hah hah!

Rent Out Your Toilet with Cloo' [Video]

 #more

CLOO' is a service designed to help city dwellers make some spare cash by renting out their bathrooms to people who are desperate to find a clean place to pee. Hey, times are tough, and, where there's a need, there's a market.


You can see how the service works in the video above. In their own words:



CLOO' is based on one simple truth- we all have to pee. Though in urban cities finding a clean, available restroom is difficult & frustrating. That's where CLOO' comes in.


CLOO' is a community of registered users who choose to share their bathrooms and make city-living easier, while earning a small profit. Using social media connections, CLOO' shows what friends you have in common with the host, turning a stranger's loo into a friend of a friend's loo.



The next time you're desperate to find a bathroom near you, you can use CLOO' and the power of your social networks to find friends of friends who will let you use their bathroom for a buck or two. I didn't see the app downloadable on CLOO's site yet, but you can follow them on Twitter to get updates and find out when you'll be able to profit from your bathroom.


CLOO | via Buzzfeed




You can follow or contact Melanie Pinola, the author of this post, on Twitter or Google+.


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Find: As Networks Speed Up, Data Hits a Wall

On the coming cloud cap collision (sorry).

As Networks Speed Up, Data Hits a Wall

Cellphone plans that let people gobble up unlimited data are disappearing as new data-heavy services catch on.

Find: Will Consumers Benefit if T-Mobile Stands Alone?

Without a merger tmobile will have $6b more, but remains on a bad course losing subscribers. Something will have to change, will it be innovation (no caps), purchases (of smaller players) or being purchased (sprint)?

Will Consumers Benefit if T-Mobile Stands Alone?

Find: Mobile Apps Make It Easy to Point and Identify

Id plants, products, moles, wine, art. 

Mobile Apps Make It Easy to Point and Identify

Find: Why Feds Are Right to Block AT&T, T-Mobile Merger

Interesting perspective on the merger. I haven't found many who defend it. At some point, the government may have to act further to avoid the braking effect service providers have on our economy. Eg bandwidth caps. 

Singel-Minded: Why Feds Are Right to Block AT&T, T-Mobile Merger

ANALYSIS – The feds unexpectedly walked into a federal court Wednesday to file a lawsuit seeking to block AT&T from buying T-Mobile for $39 billion.

Find: HP splits webOS GBU: keeps software, leaves hardware with PSG

The Dickensian saga of webos continues. 

HP splits webOS GBU: keeps software, leaves hardware with PSG

Find: Microsoft Reveals Details About Windows 8′s User Interface

Default on desktops too? Hmm.

Microsoft Reveals Details About Windows 8′s User Interface

Metro UI; That’s the name of the new user interface that Microsoft plans to ship with the Windows 8 operating system when it comes out next year. What we did not know until now was how the interface would be integrated into the operating system, especially so on desktop PCs. Many users suspected that the new UI would only be turned on by default on tablet and touch based devices, and that desktop users would get the standard interface instead.

That is not the case according to Steven Sinfosky. Windows 8 will ship with a dual user interface. The main interface is Metro UI which gets loaded when the operating system starts. Desktop UI, which Microsoft basically sees like another app on the system, is not loaded until the user needs it.

metro ui windows8

Find: Samsung Galaxy Note unveiled at IFA: 5.3-inch Super AMOLED display, WXGA resolution, and S Pen stylus