Here’s a thought: just keep it. At least for a little while.

I’m sure this must sound a bit petty, but people have seriously been waiting years for a native Gmail app, and they must have been awfully disappointed today. Even if we set the broken push notifications aside for a moment, the app itself was still… shall we say, lackluster?

Several people pointed out on Twitter that the app was just a slightly-tweaked version of the Gmail mobile web view that we’ve had access to for years now. Sure, it had some welcome additions, like improved search functionality and the ability to star emails, but it’s still essentially the same old thing.

What gives, Google? I can almost forgive the notifications issue — we all make mistakes after all — but what’s with releasing an app that offers little (if any) improvement over what was already available?

Now, I’m sure that Google will fix the problem and issue an fixed version in due time, but what they should really do is put it back in the oven, and leave it in there until it’s better than done. I realize that in the grand scheme of things I’m a nobody, but here are a few things I think Google should fix since they’ve pulled the app anyway:

• Fix those push notifications: I think this one goes without saying. You can set up your Gmail as a Exchange account to make push work email, but a more streamlined solution would be much appreciated.
• Fix the speed issues: One of Gmail’s biggest selling points is that you have so much storage space that you don’t really need to delete emails anymore. The Gmail app seems to have forgotten this though, because it tends to slow down when you try to scroll through your emails.
• Add support for multiple accounts: Maybe I’m in the minority on this one, but I’d wager there are a fair number of users with multiple accounts. My personal and TechCrunch email accounts both run through Gmail, so being able to use the app in multiple scenarios would be a nice touch.
• Let us save attachments from within the app: The stock Mail.app can handle this just fine, so leaving it out of the alternative doesn’t make much sense.
• Make it worth using: In short, give us a reason to use it over the web client. This is a chance to really show that Google knows apps and can develop something that’s just as good as their web options, but catered to an iOS experience.

Or not. Like I said, I’m nobody and Google is, well… Google. Here’s hoping that the next version of the Gmail app (whenever it happens to go live) manages to erase the bitter taste that this release has left in my mouth.

Select account settings and it will open ‘General’ settings. Now, click on Linked accounts and select one of the account providers from the drop down box (includes Google, My-Space , Yahoo, openID and verisign) and click on ‘link new account’.

You will need to provide your Facebook password to confirm the action. Next time around, Facebook will not ask for your password if you are logged in to your linked account on the same browser.

In the dot-com era, data centres consumed 1 or 2 MW. Now it’s common to find facilities that require 20 MW, and already some of them expect to use ten times as much in the years to come. For countries, data centre power consumption is expected to put an enormous burden on their power grids.

Not surprisingly, an enormous amount of innovation, right from the semiconductor level, is today going into finding solutions to reduce power consumption in computing systems. IBM’s India Software Lab in Bangalore has just contributed towards that. It has developed a system to run data centres on solar power, and is making it commercially available, perhaps the first such commercial offering in the world.

“Until now, no one has engineered solar power for efficient use in IT,” said Rod Adkins, senior VP of IBM’s systems and technology group, who was in Bangalore last week. “We’ve designed a solar solution to bring a new source of clean, reliable and efficient power to energy-intensive, industrial-scale electronics.”

The first implementation is being done at the Bangalore lab itself. A solar power array has been installed, spread over more than 6,000 sft of the lab’s rooftop. Kota Murali, chief scientist at IBMIndia, says the installation is capable of providing a 50-kilowatt of electricity for up to 330 days a year, for an average of five hours a day. The advantage of solar power is that it is DC (direct current), unlike grid power that is AC (alternating current).

Processors run on DC, so when you use grid power, you need to convert AC to DC. In the process of that conversion, you lose about 13% of power. On the other hand, when you do a DC to DC conversion, the loss is only 4%. So you have a saving of close to 10%.

Adkins said while the solution could bring a 10% saving in developed markets, it could be even better in emerging markets, where there are many places that are not served or inadequately served by the grid. Murali says his facility in Bangalore suffers a 3 to 6 hour power cut on average every day, forcing them to depend on diesel generators. “The per unit cost of that is much higher than even solar,” he says.

The India team’s innovation has been in integrating DC IT systems, water-cooled systems and solar power. Water-cooled systems are also a relatively new phenomenon; water is far more efficient at cooling than is air. “These technologies were developed in silos, but we are seeing huge benefits when we connect them,” Adkins says.

He says the history of solar-power shows that its biggest commercial successes come when the technology is tuned for specific uses, as was being done now by creating a preengineered solution for future data centres. “The first solar calculator hit store shelves in 1978 and was an instant hit. This is a solar solution for a slightly bigger calculator, a 30 teraflop datacentre.”

Azure has been available to customers since February 2010, but it would probably reassure many tire kickers to know that the software company is putting its own bread-and-butter applications on the infrastructure before they feel comfortable making that move themselves. In April, at its Convergence 2011 conference, Microsoft said it would move the first of three enterprise resource planning (ERP) products to Azure. That product, Dynamics NAV, should be on Azure sometime in 2012 with the other two to follow.

Photosynth, which uses reams of crowd-sourced digital photo data (it weighed in at more than 40TB when the migration started), may be a good test of the migration process, at least in terms of data. According to the Photosynth blog post:

When we launched Photosynth more than three years ago Microsoft didn’t have a general-purpose cloud-based storage and distribution network, so we used a partner to provide storage and CDN (Content Distribution Network) services. But things have changed dramatically in the last few years, and our own Windows Azure is now among the strongest cloud solutions in the industry. We’re excited to be “eating our own dog food”, as we say, and moving every last Photosynth pixel to Azure.

On the other hand, Photosynth, which was born of the web, is a relatively new application compared to Dynamics ERP, not to mention SharePoint and other client-server applications. Microsoft already offers hosted CRM, Office 365 and other services, but they run on older Microsoft hosting infrastructure.

Microsoft chose NAV as its first cloud ERP service  because it’s one of the newer and more web-enabled of the Microsoft ERP code bases. The older the application, the more steeped in the rich-client legacy, the harder it will be to move it to the cloud and retain the rich user experience these customers have come to expect. For that reason, the transition of these older apps to the new Azure platform may prove trickier.

Memory cards are also going through the trend of miniaturisation. The selection of compact flash (SF) cards is not nearly as extensive as a few years ago.

‘Until now compact flash cards have been especially interesting due to their high processing speed,’ said Ichiro Ike Takagi, head of the picture division at Sony.

‘But for the past two or three years, SD (Secure Digital) cards and memory sticks have been reaching those same values.’

And if speed no longer plays a role, then the compact size of the SD cards and memory sticks wins out, says Takagi. ‘Then it means goodbye compact flash!’

SD cards (3.2 cm by 2.4 cm) and the memory stick Duo (3.1 cm by 2.0 cm) are both significantly smaller than CF cards. Introduced in 1994, CF cards have a storage capacity of up to 128 GB – with an online price in this size of 670 euro (903 dollars). But CF cards of this capacity do not make much sense for a lot of uses – other than recordings or HD videos.

Professional photographers prefer to carry more memory cards with smaller or middle capacities rather than one large data carrier. That means the damage is less with a malfunction.

‘That doesn’t always have to mean the physical loss of a memory card,’ said German photographer Heiko Rost. ‘Exterior influences such as moisture or heat or even magnetic fields are enough to make a memory card unreadable.’ Magnetic fields for example lurk at security controls at airports.

With photography, a high writing speed of memory cards is important.

‘If the memory card is just messing around in the decisive moment because it’s digesting the data, then the photo at the finish, the picture of the goal of the month, the explosion of the race car in the pile of tyres – basically the decisive moment – is gone,’ said Rost.

Manufacturers have defined different designations for the levels of speed. CF cards have a writing speed of up to 100 MB per second (MB/s). The common SD cards reach only up to 30 MB/s. The further developed SDXC cards (SD eXtended Capacity) get up to 104 MB/s – and eventually should push up to 300 MB/s. With the capacity, the manufacturers are aiming for 2 Terabyte (2,048 Gigabyte). SDXC cards with a capacity of 64 GB and a price starting at 70 euro are suitable for camcorders.

But you should not just test if the SDXC is supported by the desired device. ‘Fast memory cards also need fast interfaces on your computer, just like fast card readers,’ said Rost. Recommended also is software which can save accidentally deleted files and correct access problems which can occur through recording errors in the saving of files. Free programs for this include PC Inspector or TestDisk & PhotoRec.

SD cards are also replacing more and more the multimedia cards (MMC). The flexible SmartMedia cards and the xD Picture Cards from Olympus and Fuji are nearly obsolete.

The future belongs to the SD cards. Many laptops have an SD card reader and smartphones now come standardised with additional memory via a MicroSD card. These cards are very small at 1.1 cm by 1.5 cm but can save up to 32 GB in the MicroSDHC version. A 16 GB MicroSDHC is available online starting at only 15 euro.

What Infosys is looking to do is build software products and platforms that it can sell and resell again and again without having to add people each time. But Infosys doesn’t yet have a culture or systems tuned to consistently generating and improving products. It’s a problem all the top Indian outsourcers face, as they see the limits of their historical advantage in lower labor costs and abundant talent.

Infosys is still growing at a decent clip. This week it it announced that its second-quarter revenue rose 16.7 percent compared with the year-earlier quarter and 4.5 percent from the previous quarter, to USD 1.7 billion. But sustaining that growth meant hiring more than 15,000 people–7,000 of them as replacements for people who left.

Like many, I am absolutely amazed by Siri, the talking assistant on the iPhone 4S.  It was the one thing that really stood out for me during the launch event when Scott Forstall introduced it ten days ago. And now we finally get to play with it.

After an Apple product launch, my usual evening at home is telling (umm .. selling) my wife the new features and how I need to have it. It’s a path of persuasion of how the product is not a want. Those “needs” now have been met by the prior generations of the iPhone, both generations of iPad, Apple TV, MacBook, MacBook Pro and a home surrounded by wireless bits on an Apple router.  But when I went home that night, it was all about Siri—”the other person” in my life. I never uttered a word about the specs of the dual core A5 processor or how it has 7x better graphics or even the HSPA+ download speeds—she does not care. An average person, unlike many of us, couldn’t care less for what is under the hood, couldn’t care less whether the product is open or closed, couldn’t care less about Flash, HTML5 or native apps. I found myself listing all the scenarios of how productive I was going to be, how finally something that can actually be used was here. It would be the perfect companion to get all my to-dos done!

Reminders are a common work flow issue for me and I always add them to my calendar.  Setting up meetings—we do that all the time. Rerouting as we drive—very frequent. Often working in the ‘Indian Stretchable Time’ zone, I find myself sending texts to people that I am running late. There is an entire industry of virtual assistants out there because we want to focus on important things, not busy things. I can imagine a few more Siri applications in the future that I know I would love to have:

Parking space as you drive around looking for one

Flight status: Siri, is United flight # 1234 on time?

Travel bookings: Siri, what is the cheapest ticket to Boston on Deceomber 15th? Kayak in the future?

More local: search for a type of business, say a tailor. Is the business open? Siri, call the business. Pay per call advertising?

Deals:  Is there a deal within a mile of where I am at?

Movies: Siri, can you tell me where The Ides of March is running? Is the movie ‘Delhy Belly’ available on Netflix Instant? If yes, please add it to my queue.

Commerce: Siri, can you tell me if a pair of Adidas Forest Hills are available at a store nearby? After Siri finds it (if available), Siri can then help me map the directions

Social: Headed to a meeting. Siri, can you tell me who are my mutual contacts with this person?

Asking questions is an inherent quest to learn, to search. Add context and meaning and suddenly we go far beyond keywords. One of the continuous things Google works on is figuring out context.  When you search with keyword “apple”, did you mean to look for the fruit or the company? Apple just changed the rules of the game—again.  It made the phone smarter, not just do more.

Finally and very importantly, user acquisition. Being in a noisy world and a salesman within, one thing that I obsess about a lot is user acquisition. I am a hungry student of product design elements that inherently attract new users. I am hungry to learn why people buy what they buy; why do they use what they use. How did they discover what they use?

So rewind back a little.  I remember when I got my first iPhone (3GS). I was so giddy with excitement with my new toy that I couldn’t stop telling everyone I knew about it. Not only that, I did demos too. I convinced as many as I could to let go of their Blackberrys (I switched from one) and move on. The closer was always apps. My favorite one was Ocarina. I would blow through the microphone exhibiting my hidden musical skills (or lack thereof). The smoothly rotating globe with music being played all around the world never ceased to draw the “wows” and the “oohs”—and I assure you that they were not about how well I played the Ocarina. It was the single largest and most well lubricated organic word-of-mouth machine I had ever seen. It was a lot like the advertising we all do when we carry out shopping bags with a ‘Macy’s’ logo on it or akin to wearing a Gap hoodie or when we wear a Barcelona team shirt. We pride ourselves in the product we associate with and we are more than comfortable paying (big dollars when it comes to European football with jerseys at $70-$80 a pop) to advertise them. Its an emotion so strong that it soon becomes an integral part of our identity that we wish to share.

With Siri, needless to say the millions (Apple reported a more than million pre-orders, and analysts now expect millions more to be sold this quarter) of iPhone 4S users are going to be marching around showing off their new friend Siri to friends, family and colleagues. If it works as demoed, it is going to make everyone want one. So in a genius stroke, Apple handed each of us ammunition to evangelize and advertise their brand through a product that is on us all the time. With Siri, they have also given us a reason to take out the phone from our pockets even more often now and demo it to complete strangers.

Deep within, I am fearfully hopeful that juuuuust maybe, Siri will be able be to recognize my first name—something that most people send through a paper shredder. And yes, if you forget your anniversary in the future and have a 4S, blame it on Siri. I know I would have loved to have it on my last anniversary.

I’ll start off by explaining that I’m not qualified to be a professional smartphone reviewer, whatsoever. We have our former CrunchGear and MobileCrunch slaves for that type of stuff. That said, I’ve used a bunch of smartphones over the years, of all shapes and sizes, and I know damn well what I want.

If you’re looking for one of those thorough hands-on reviews or a list of specs, please look elsewhere. Okay? Okay.

TL;DR: The Nokia N9′s hardware, operating system and pre-installed applications are almost all exceptionally good, and a tight integration between them makes for a top notch user experience. Unfortunately, the price is far too steep, and there just aren’t enough apps on the marketplace.

Full review:

The Nokia N9 is easily one of the most pleasant, fast and thoughtfully designed phones I’ve ever used. And I’ve used plenty of iPhones and Android phones to date to know what I’m talking about.

There’s a lot of things to like about the N9: the quality and responsiveness of the touch screen, the nifty ‘swiping’ features, the general look and feel of the (unibody) hardware, the navigation and ‘Drive’ applications, the curved glass, the camera quality, the way notifications work, the incoming updates river view, the lack of buttons, built-in NFC capabilities, and so on. A really, really solid job, Nokia.

It has its quirks too, like any device I daresay, and a surprisingly crappy preloaded Webkit browser (no tabs, no favorites, no ‘read it later’, and odd rendering at times). You also can’t personalize the background (save for the lock screen) or add effects to it – something I’ve grown surprisingly fond of with Android phones. iPhone users will miss their folders.

So why would I – and probably you – never buy it? Two main reasons.

First, the phone is too expensive. The N9 costs 480 euros (roughly $650) for the 16 GB version, and 560 euros (~$755) for the 64 GB version, before taxes or subsidies.

I understand the reasoning. It’s a high-end phone, and Nokia wants its price to match the way it feels about the device. And if it weren’t ~2 years late to the market, it’d be an acceptable price, too.

Unfortunately, we now live in a world where you can pick up a decent iPhone or Android handset for roughly the same price or cheaper, so the N9 simply can’t compete on price.

The second reason is less objective and more obvious: the staggering lack of apps in the marketplace (called Nokia Store these days). It’s not disastrous; the phone comes preloaded with apps like Maps, Drive, Skype, Facebook, Twitter, Angry Birds (lite), AccuWeather, YouTube etc. and you can easily install apps like Foursquare and some nice games from the store, free of charge.

But that’s pretty much it, and it’s a problem.

I know I can pick up any Android phone or iPhone, install the Yammer app and collaborate with my fellow instantly (okay, when the app does what it’s supposed to, which isn’t always the case). I can install Amazon’s Kindle app and start reading my most recently downloaded ebook on the page I was when I last signed off. I can install the NYT and WSJ apps to keep on top of world news, and download Pulse to read the feeds I’ve subscribed to. I can install Shazam and identify and buy tunes wherever I am. I can download Viber and call and text my friends for free.

On the Nokia N9, none of that is possible. The company representative I talked to yesterday says it will get better, and developers just need to become more aware of cross-platform application framework Qt and how they can port existing apps so they run on MeeGo.

Perhaps, but that will take time, and as I said before, Nokia is already late to this game.

It’s a sad, strange paradox: the phone is so beautiful and works so smoothly that I’m actually having a hard time putting the N9 down, but I can honestly say that I would never recommend anyone to go out and purchase it in a world so chock-full of better choices, especially at that price.

That has local advocates downright giddy about the iPhone 4S, Apple’s latest creation hitting stores today with an advanced voice-command feature called Siri.

“The blindness community is really hyped about what (the iPhone) does now and what it can do in the future,” said Wes Majerus, a technology specialist and instructor at the nonprofit Colorado Center for the Blind. “There is a lot of hype about Siri.”

Early reviews suggest Siri is a technological breakthrough, although it could use some tinkering.

Siri responds to spoken commands such as “Set my timer for 30 minutes,” but it struggles with questions like “When is the next flight to Denver from San Francisco?”

Apple says the software is still in beta, or test, mode. The company’s video promoting the feature concludes with a blind woman responding to a text message simply by speaking to her iPhone.

“There’s something to be said for being on the move and just pulling out the phone and dictating a text to somebody and getting it sent off,” said Majerus, who is blind and owns an iPhone 4.

An estimated 240,000 Colorado residents are blind or visually impaired, according to the American Council of the Blind.

Apple first made its popular smartphone accessible to blind people in 2009 with the iPhone 3GS. VoiceOver was a standard feature on the device and subsequent updates. When the option is activated, the iPhone speaks almost everything that otherwise would be read on screen by the user, such as e-mails, phone numbers and letters on the virtual keyboard when they are tapped.

“The iPhone is the only fully accessible handset that a blind person can buy,” said Chris Danielsen, a spokesman for the National Federation of the Blind, a nonprofit advocacy organization. “Android has some accessibility capabilities, but they don’t work as well as Apple.”

Before the iPhone 3GS, blind people had to purchase expensive third-party applications to make their cellphone accessible, Danielsen said.

In addition to working out of the box, the iPhone has access to apps that support the VoiceOver option. There are also a number of third-party apps designed for blind people, such as LookTel’s Money Reader app, which identifies currency with the iPhone’s camera and speaks the denomination.

Based on the Android 2.3 operating system(OS), the X1 features a 1 GHz processor, 512 MB storage capacity with internal memory of 4 GB (expandable upto 32 GB), a 2 megapixel front camera and supports full HD video and Flash.

“The X1, especially caters to the demands of the Indian customers…The tablet comes loaded with India content and applications along with an integrated back up service with HCL Touch, a 24×7 one touch service facility,” HCL Infosystems CEO Harsh Chitale told reporters here.

It provides an option of data connectivity through USB dongles as well, he added.

Chitale, however, declined to comment on any sales targets.

HCL Infosystems had forayed into the tablet PC (devices with PC-like functionalities) space in March this year, with the launch of its ME series of devices.

On the application front, the X1 comes pre-loaded with over 34 ready-to-use applications along with access to ME App store. However, the Android market does not come pre-installed with the device.

The domestic tablet market is flooded with a number of tablets from companies like Apple,Samsung, HTC, Research In Motion and many others. The prices vary between Rs 5,000 and Rs 32,000.

Earlier this month, the world’s cheapest tablet PC named Aakash (priced at just Rs 2,276) was launched by the Indian government as part of its programme to expand education among students through information technology.

However, the category is still at a nascent stage. According to analysts, sales in the tablet PC segment in India are expected to touch one million units over the next 12 months.

Talking about the demand environment for computers, Chitale said the demand has been slow in the large enterprises and the government segments in the last quarter.

Also, the company has raised prices across all categories of personal computers and laptops in the July-September quarter as a weakening rupee raised input costs, he added.

While HTC’s Radar is expected to be priced about Rs 24,000, Acer’s Allegro will cost about 16,000, giving competition to Android based smartphones, already a success in India. “Microsoft’s vision is to play a role in a large spectrum of devices, the mobile phone is the key device in markets such as India,” said Bhaskar Pramanik, chairman, Microsoft India.

Microsoft has set minimum hardware requirements for a phone to run Windows Phone 7.5, and a set form factor with three keys, in contrast to Google, which has let vendors customise Android.

Since the Android platform is free and there are no restrictions on the type of device that can run Android, it is now the fastest growing smartphone platform. Google reports that it activates over 5,00,000 Android devices every day. Microsoft says it will follow a middle path in contrast to Google and Apple, whose business strategies are at extreme ends.

Although Windows Phone was not officially released in India, HTC and Dell have already launched their own Windows Phone devices earlier this year. However, there was no access to the Windows Marketplace (Microsoft’s App store for Windows Phone) for users in India.

The fast-growing browser had about 160 million users in May, up from 120 million in December 2010, according to eWeek, which correctly predicted Chrome would hit 200 million users in October.

Chrome’s growth had been noted elsewhere. The browser has about 15% market share and in some markets, like the UK, it has surpassed Firefox’s share to become the second most popular browser after IE. Among Mashable readers, meanwhile, Chrome is the most popular.

The huge installed base for Chrome is good news for Google, which just started rolling out its first Chromebooks in June.

For those who hadn’t finagled their way into the developer Beta’s: 1) you’re a more patient human than I could ever hope to be, and 2) you’re in for a treat. This is the biggest update iOS has seen since the addition of the App Store, and it’s jam-packed full of good stuff.

The iOS 5 update is compatible with the iPhone 3GS, iPhone 4 (GSM and CDMA), iPod touch 3rd/4th generation, and the iPad/iPad 2. It’ll also come preloaded on the 4S, of course, when that device launches later this week.

It’s been a while since iOS 5 was announced to the world, so here’s a quick recap of some of the biggest features:

• iCloud: Apple’s cloud-based content/data syncing service. Backs up your content, photos, etc. in the cloud for safe keeping, provides one-click access to redownloading all the apps you’ve ever purchased, etc.
• iMessage: Apple’s free iOS-to-iOS messaging solution. SMS dies today.
• Notification Center: Apple has completely overhauled their old, antiquated alerts system. You now drag down from the top of the screen to see a drawer with all notifications.
• Newstand: Bundles all of your e-magazine/newspaper subscriptions into one smart folder
• Reminders: a new to-do/reminder system, complete with location-based alerts
• Twitter Integration
• Much improved Camera UX (You can access the camera with a double tap of the home button on the homescreen, and use the volume up key to take a photo)
• Crazy simple photo editing (Cropping, rotating, red-eye reduction) within the Photo app
• Over-the-air updates and PC-less device activation

Downloading the update is pretty simple: just plug in, pop into iTunes, tap on your device’s name in the left-hand navigation, and click the “Update” button found on the page that pops up. If you’re not seeing the update, give it a few minutes — the servers are getting hammered pretty hard right now.

Article Source : TechCrunch

With that said: October 12th, 2011. Mark it down, and come back and yell at me in a few years if I’m wrong. Today is the day SMS begins to die.

It begins with today’s launch of iOS 5.

Or, really, it begins with iMessage.

Back in June, MG wrote that Apple had “finally stuck a dagger into SMS” with the announcement of iMessage. Today, they’re pulling that dagger out… and sitting back and laughing as the wound bleeds out.

You! Heading for the comments! Wait a second. (A crazy request, really, given that it’s 5 line breaks deep into this post. I probably should’ve put it right in the headline.)

To be clear, iMessage alone won’t kill SMS. It’ll just start the avalanche.

Today, many millions of people (and millions more, come Friday) are being shown something better. Besides updating to iOS 5, they don’t have to do anything to make it work. They don’t have to manually install an app; hell, they don’t even need to use anything they’re not already using.

This isn’t BlackBerry Messenger. There are no PINs to share. iMessage just knows when the person you’re texting can receive iMessages, and handles everything for you.

This isn’t Google Voice, with its free texting. There is no new app to install and use, or new service to sign up for.

This is many, many, many millions of devices, suddenly switching to a new protocol with little interaction from the user. This is millions of iPhones, suddenly sending a fraction of the SMS messages they sent before. The carriers are terrified, and rightly so.

Yes, iMessage only works from iOS device to iOS device — but that doesn’t matter. This is just the beginning of the end.

Next, iMessage support will come to iChat in OS X. Users will be chatting across platforms — again, with no new apps to install, and no new services to sign up for.

Next, Google will respond with their own, completely integrated Android-to-Android alternative. They already have such a thing to some extent with Google Talk — it’s just lacking things like photo messaging, read/delivery receipts, and the most important part: the seamless, almost entirely automatic integration. Don’t expect it to stay that way.

At a certain point, probably 2-3 years down the road, these proprietary services will be in no way unique. Any surviving platforms will likely have their own SMS alternative, and the concept will reach a point of entropy where they’re no longer directly beneficial to device sales. In fact, that they are not cross-compatible will be seen as a detriment to the concept as a whole — and at that point, the major players will begin working together on a cross-platform (but still carrier independent and agnostic) standard.

Users will grow accustomed to these service’s fancier tricks — the aforementioned read/delivery receipts, the typing status indicators, and the whole, you know, being free part. Users will see texting people via the old SMS system as antiquated; being SMS-only will be like being in a different area code in the mid 90′s. You’ll still get texts — your friends just won’t be happy about it.

SMS won’t go away completely, just as e-mail hasn’t entirely killed snail mail — it’ll just be a sad shell of its former self. It’ll hold strong for a few years longer in certain countries outside of the US, until a standard is set and the new protocol is embraced in feature phones. Companies will still harass you via SMS. You’ll still be able to vote for your favorite American Idol via SMS. But SMS, as we’ve known and loathed for far too long, as a ubiquitous and integrated part of our world’s communication, as an unjustifiable cash cow for the carriers, is dying. Good riddance.

Article Source : TechCrunch

Telesocial is an angel-funded start-up dedicated to voice. They initially worked at adding voice to social networks – including Facebook – and have now opened up their work to programmers. Their system allows one-click calling between app users (you could yell at your opponent in Carcassonne, for example) and the creation of in-app conference rooms for multiple users.

You can use nearly any language to create what they call a TalkSpace and they have documentation for PHP, Objective-C, and command-line based instantiation.

Bill Waytena and Eric Stone founded the site in 2008 and they have always focused on voice in the social setting.

“The Telesocial API allows developers to add innovative voice functionalities to their games and applications,” wrote Eric Stone in a release. “Our API translates user IDs into phone numbers, creating a phone-numberless voice service that connects people anytime, anywhere on their favorite device, the mobile phone.”

Article Source : TechCrunch

For a company that is supposed to eat its own dog food, Google has been criticized for how few of its senior executives are visible on Google+. You can find +Larry and +Sergey there, and now so too is executive chairman +Eric Schmidt.

Of course, Schmidt might have been there all along, just not sharing in public. After all, that is the point of Circles. It’s pretty clear that everyone at Google uses Google+ internally, and sometimes those posts even get sharedinadvertently. But now Schmidt is sharing in public as well. His first post about two hours ago are links to his remembrances of Steve Jobs on Charlie Rose, CNBC, and in BusinessWeek.

For some reason, Schmidt’s profile photo is a picture of himself which looks like it is from 20 years ago when he was at Sun. Time to update that photo. Perhaps he could take a cue from Google founder Sergey Brin, who shares amazing photos on Google+ of whales, tortoises and skydiving pics.

Any top Google exec needs to be careful what they share publicly because they do represent the company, even on Google+. But they can also take the natural curiosity people have about their lives and thoughts and use it to showcase hat Google+ is all about. If they don’t use and love their products, why should the rest of us?

Until just a couple months ago i considered myself just another consumer searching for the best smart phone out there.  I went on a little consumer journey (read more) that carried me from owning the Palm Pre to the iPhone and finally ending up with the Motorola Droid and now finding myself embarked in the beginning stages of mobile application development for my company.  Along the way couldn’t help but notice some parallels of transitioning away from IBM mainframes and mini computers to PCs and Macs in the 1980s. 

Now, as then, a smaller device is displacing a bigger one. Now, as then, the platform remains somewhat primitive but is evolving rapidly. Hardware makers are trying to figure out which user interface works best.  Software makers are dreaming up new ways to use machines that even their creators could not have imagined. Now, as then, a new ecosystem is arising, with disruptive technology creating new powerhouses and threatening the survival of market leaders.

Back in 1984, Apple leapt way ahead in the PC market when it released the original Macintosh, the first popular computer to employ a graphical user interface. It took Microsoft six years to come up with something that could compare to the Mac, in the form of Windows 3.0. Six years! For all that time, Apple had the market to itself. Nevertheless, Windows took over the world and now holds more than 90 percent market share, while Apple squeaks by with less than 5 percent worldwide.

Its unfolding again before our eyes like the sequel of the movie  Pirates of  Silicon Valley.  In June 2007, Apple introduced the iPhone, a device that was so far beyond everything else in the market that even now, two and a half years later, nothing can beat it. To be sure, Nokia and Research in Motion still hold a greater share of the smartphone market than Apple does, but their aging software platforms look obsolete next to Apple’s.

The question is, will Apple do with the iPhone what it did with the Mac? Will it leap out to a technological lead and then find a way to clutch defeat from the jaws of victory? Or has Apple learned from its previous experience and figured out a way to turn its superior design and wonderful technology into market domination?

Probably Apple’s biggest blunder with the Mac was refusing to let other companies license its software. (There was a time when Apple did license its software, but by then it had already lost out to Microsoft.) The thing is, Apple CEO Steve Jobs is a control freak who believes in keeping the software tightly coupled to the hardware. In his mind, this is the only way to guarantee that you’ll give customers a terrific experience.

Microsoft took the opposite approach, letting any PC maker license the Windows operating system. There’s a tradeoff here. Microsoft couldn’t control the user’s experience. But its decision led to greater diversity of machines, and lower prices. For most of the world, cheap machines that were “good enough” trumped Apple’s pricier, perfectionist, control-freak approach.

Microsoft also encouraged developers of software applications to create programs for Windows, and gave them a huge audience they could sell to. The more apps the software guys created, the more appealing Windows became, so it was a self-reinforcing phenomenon, a virtuous circle.

With Apple and the iPhone, in some ways it’s 1984 all over again. Just as with the Mac, Apple keeps the iPhone’s hardware and software tightly coupled. Meanwhile, other companies are taking the old Microsoft approach, most notably Google, which has developed a smartphone operating system called Android that any phonemaker can use at no cost and customize any way they like. Android can do things that the iPhone can’t, like run multiple applications at the same time.

Again, as with Windows PCs, with Android we’re going to see a tradeoff: more diversity, lower prices (eventually), but perhaps a less predictable experience. No two Android–based devices will be completely alike. Also, it’s still in the early days for Android, so your experience might be rockier than on the iPhone. One new device that has lots of geeks buzzing is the Droid, from Motorola, which just started shipping this month. The Droid has a touchscreen, like the iPhone, but it also has a real keyboard. And the Droid runs on the Verizon network, while the iPhone runs on the AT&T network, which isn’t as good. And the Droid costs the same as the iPhone.

But over time, a lot of iPhone apps will become available on Android, too.  So Apple’s advantage will diminish. Market research company Gartner predicts that by 2012, Android will have slightly more market share than the iPhone, thanks to a tidal wave of Android-based devices that are expected to flood the market over the next few years. Rumor has it that Apple will expand its presence in the mobile-device market by introducing a tablet computer next year. But by going it alone, Apple will never keep up with the Android army. 

To avoid a slipping market share it maybe that Apple will come to agree to an arrangement with Google to allow some of the key Android features on the iPhone.  Unlike the personal computer days, Google’s revenue comes almost entirely from ads.  It’s beneficial to Google at least to allow features on the iPhone Operating System to expand the reach of Google’s network.  At least then a truce can be drawn between Apple and the little green men.

Chris Janota is the CEO of MX123.com a stubbornly successful independent DVD retailer in St. Paul, Minnesota that buys used DVDs, CDs, videogames and books from the public.

Confused by all the Names?  Is Android a Phone?  Does the Palm Pre support iTunes? 

This chart makes sence of it all:

 See my review on the leading Smart phones.

Choosing the Best Smartphone

By Chris Janota from MX123.com  11/20/09  
 

In my quest to design a mobile application my first step has been to thoroughly research the best Smartphones.   Here’s a review of the best.    Since i was locked into a contract with Sprint my natural first choice was to explore the options available with them.  Presenting the Palm Pre.   At the time the importance of applications “apps” on my smart phone had not sunk in - probably no differently than most people’s thought of having a computer in their home back in 1980. But then I experienced a rush of creativity and enthusiasm playing around with the few applications Sprint offers.  Access to iTunes was important to me since i want to double my phone as an MP3 player to listen to my music and my Podcast library.   The sales clerk at Sprint explained to me i could access iTunes.  But after happily using my Pre for a couple weeks my access to iTunes mysteriously ceased after downloading an iTune update.   I learned Sprints stock drop from $17 to $11 per share during this week and I was off to Sprint to return my phone and my contract with Sprint.

For another chart that compares phone manufacturers, operating systems, carriers and more click here.  

Since the iPhone boasted having 100,000 apps (heck, 100 would be all I ever needed) I went to AT+T to pick up an iPhone.   What a great design!  I had a blast listening to my iTunes again and using Facebook, Pandora,  email,  many apps specific to my industry.  Why would anyone think of leaving such a perfect piece of technology…or art?  But as i was now exploring developing my own navigational app for my company mx123.com,  along came the revelation of   Google’s Android operating system and where this new market is headed.   Because Apple manages the manufacturing, operating system and the application market it now finds itself competing with Google.  Google has designed Android an OS  that any phone maker can use on their phone at no cost.  It’s a deja vu experience going back to 1984 at the outset of the PC -Apple Computer war.   (See my article on the Coming War Between the Android Army and iPhone.) 

 I returned the iPhone and picked myself up a Motorola Droid which runs the Android 2.0 OS.  Unlike the iPhone it has a real QWERTY keyboard and runs multiple applications.   But the new Google Navigation is the real gem.   It has turn-by-turn navigational system like TomTom or Garmin except that Android offers net connectivity that could give you updated traffic reports and nearby business destinations.   Now combine that functionality with Google search and Google’s new voice recognition into your navigation.   Much the same way the original internet was made for shopping… or porn,  it seems to me its seems all mobile, GPS, voice recognition technologies are coming together at the same time to make a killer navigational app.   :-0   To see this in action checkout this Google video.  In real life it really does work about as well as you see in the video. 

Chris Janota is the CEO of MX123.com a stubbornly successful independent DVD retailer in Woodbury, Minnesota that buys used DVDs, CDs, videogames and books from the public.