Tech News Today 316

Tech News Today Episode 316

Tech News Today 316: Amazon Is A Unicorn

Samsung aims to wipe out SMS, Eric Schmidt redefines Google + and television, Android coming to HP TouchPad, and more.

Submit and vote on story coverage at technewstoday.reddit.com

Hosts

• Tom Merritt (@acedtect)
  • TomMerritt.com
• Sarah Lane (@sarahlane)
  • SarahLane.com
• Iyaz Akhtar
  • thisoldnerd.finitecomedy.com

Top Stories

• Samsung's ChatOn Messenger Guns for BlackBerry, Apple

• Samsung’s ChatOn cross-platform messaging app to be released at IFA

• Samsung Getting Its Chat On With Siloed IM Service

• Samsung Announces LTE Versions of Galaxy S II & Galaxy Tab 8.9
  • ChatOn is set go live at IFA and roll out slowly in over 120 countries across 62 languages
  • Samsung says Android, BlackBerry and shows a picture of an iOS version. Reportedly coming to Bada too according to SammyHub. Possible web client for desktop as well.
  • Feature phones will have access with limited functionality
  • group chat and messaging, as well as video and voice messages and contact, location, and calendar sharing.
  • user profiles (and Facebook-like wall posts) and interaction ranks. There are also Animation messages, which are a combination of text scribbles and audio, and the Trunk feature, which is like a repository for files shared across a user’s ChatOn messages.
  • Also at IFA: Samsung has announced LTE variants of Galaxy S II and Galaxy Tab 8.9.
  • The Android 2.3-based Galaxy S II LTE will have a humongous 4.5-inch Super AMOLED screen and an 8 megapixel camera.
  • The Galaxy Tab 8.9 LTE will be one of the most portable tablets around, being 8.6 mm thin and weighing only 455 g. Both devices will feature a 1.5GHz dual core processor.

• Eric Schmidt: If you can’t use your real name, don’t use Google+
• It’s official: Google wants to own your online identity
• Schmidt: TV makers to adopt Google TV within 5 years
  • Edinburgh International TV Festival, NPR's Andy Carvin asks Google Exec. Chairman Eric Schmidt how he justifies Google's apparent "real names or go home" stance, given that real identities could put people at risk?
  • Schmidt says G+ is primarily an identity service
  • Regarding people who are concerned about their safety, he said G+ is completely optional. No one is forcing you to use it. It's obvious for people at risk if they use their real names, they shouldn't use G+
  • He also said the internet would be better if we knew you were a real person rather than a dog or a fake person.
  • "Virtually all the television manufacturers on their very high end will eventually adopt Google TV...or perhaps one of the competitors that will emerge. We know this space exists. The issue is getting that started, getting the applications built and so forth, and that's taken quite a while."

• Amazon Could Sell 5 Million Tablets In 3 Months
• Imaginary tablet could sell imaginary millions, now thought to be only iPad competitor. Oh and a unicorn.
  • Forrester research predicts big things for imaginary Amazon Tablet
  • “only credible iPad competitor in the market”
  • “willingness to sell hardware at a loss combined with the strength of its brand, content, cloud infrastructure, and commerce assets,”
  • Could sell 3-5 million tablets in Q4 IF it keeps price below $300 and manages the supply chain well

Discussion Stories

• HP TouchPad users may see Android on their tablets
  • The crew at CyanogenMod, which creates customized builds of Android for mobile devices, have succeeded in porting over a version of Android that can run on HP's now discontinued tablet.

• Run Linux And Android On iPhone 4, iPod Touch 4G, iPad [Upcoming]
  • An open letter and video from CyanogenMod posted on the RootzWiki Web site yesterday show that developers have so far been able to run a Cyanogenmod version of Android 2.3 Gingerbread on an HP TouchPad.
  • No touch screen support
  • "Our ultimate vision is to create a multiboot solution where the end user will be able to boot into WebOS, Cyanogenmod, and/or other" OSes
  • ALSO A team of developers have begun work on porting the Linux operating system to newer iDevices with an A4 chip. Meaning you will soon be able to run Linux and maybe even the Android operating system on your iPhone 4, iPod Touch 4G and iPad.

• Next on Facebook chopping block: Deals
  • Facebook abandoning the Deals market
  • "Check-In Deals are still an important part of the marketing solutions Facebook provides. We’re still testing Check-In Deals and they are now available in 12 countries. They are not being phased out."
  • Although they killed Facebook Check-in... apparently it will have a place int he new geo-tagging system that replaces check-in
  • After testing Deals for four months, we’ve decided to end our Deals product in the coming weeks. We think there is a lot of power in a social approach to driving people into local businesses. We remain committed to building products to help local businesses connect with people, like Ads, Pages, Sponsored Stories, and Check-in Deals. We’ve learned a lot from our test and we’ll continue to evaluate how to best serve local businesses.

• AT&T, Verizon, and T-Mobile Bet Big On Mobile Payments
• Isis May Get $100 Million From Operators, But What’s The Future For NFC?
  • Bloomberg reports ATT, Verizon and T-Mobile will invest as much as $100 million in ISis mobile payment system
  • Amount depends on how many merchants sign up.
  • Sprint is on board with Google Wallet
  • Isis likely to start services mid-2012
  • Mobile payments could generate as much as $670 billion by 2015,
  • Of that NFC a modest $50 billion by 2014

• HP historical perspective from r/geek

News Fuse

• Be careful visiting Google, because it might not be Google. DigiNotar, based in the Netherlands, apparently issued a certificate fro Google.com to a site that is not google.com. Yesterday, someone reported on a Google support site that their browser issued a warning for the digital certificate when they attempted to log in to Gmail. The situation seems similar to one that happened in March to Comodo.

• Nokia just joined a very non-exclusive club - its website has been hacked. In particular, the Nokia developer forums had its database table accessed via an SQL Injection attack. The usual information - email addresses and dates of birth - are believed to be compromised. No group has taken responsibility for the hack yet.

• Digitimes is reporting that the iPhone 5 will have a not-so-giant screen at less than 4-inches. Earlier rumors put the iPhone 5 screen at about 4.2-inches. So keep your rumors straight. If you want to get the straight dope from Sprint about the iPhone, forget it - Sprint has sent out a memo to its employees that instructs them to offer "no comment" to customers who ask about the iPhone.

• iPhone N94 prototype's front assembly leaked, set to be an iPhone 4S?

• Google recently forfeited half a billion dollars to the United States for Canadian pharmacy ads in AdWords. Today the Wall Street Journal is reporting that Larry Page had personal knowledge of the ads. WSJ cites Rhode Island attorney Peter Neronha who made these claims after investigating emails. Google hasn't made an official statement in response to this finding.

• Samsung's announcing all kinds of things - a new messenger service, new Galaxy S IIs, and even some news on the Galaxy Tab 10.1. If you're in Australia, the Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 will be launched no earlier than September 30th. Samsung says it has agreed to delay the launch and this delay is not the result of an injunction.

• A judge for the Northern District of California says that a copyright holder can't sue a bunch of IP addresses even if they are bittorrenting the same copyrighted work because they don't act in concert. Judge Joseph Sperro also added that joining these claims as one lawsuit does not comport with the notions of fundamental fairness. This is somewhat good news for the owners of the 188 IP addresses as they will be able to make their own defenses on why they decided to torrent Hard Drive Productions' "Amateur Allure - Erin."

• Samsung has made it incredibly clear that it has no interest in purchasing HP's PC business. Now, there's another rumor popping up that Samsung may be interested in purchasing webOS. Samsung has recruited an ex-VP from HP already. Unlike last time, neither Samsung nor HP has made any comment about this potential deal.

• Verizon may not be getting Galaxy S II, but BGR says Samsung is readying the Droid Prime complete with Ice Cream Sandwich for an October launch exclusively on Verizon. Take that other carriers! The Droid Prime appears to be the new name of the Nexus Prime - so expect high res screen and LTE in the fall.

• Steven Sinofsky is on a roll at the Building Windows 8 Blog. This time he's showing off the future of Windows Explorer. Power users, sit down, this might sound like bad news. The ribbon UI is loud and proud in Explorer. Sinofsky even mentioned that even though Explorer will look different, Microsoft is committed to make it work for power users via keyboard shortcuts and customization.

Randomizer

• When two chatbots have a conversation, everyone wins (video)
  • conversation sounds eerily similar to something

Calendar

• Over the weekend, AT&T's LTE network went live in Chicago without an AT&T announcement. a Boy Genius Report source used an AT&T Elevate 4G LTE mobile hotspot to perform speed tests around Chicago and they were good... soft launch?
• Hey Linux fans, ManDRIva 2011 "Hydrogen" is out according to a post yesterday on the Mandriva blog that also included links to release notes and a manual!
• Samsung was supposed to have a big announcement today in New York, but then on Friday it got delayed due to the potential mass destruction of Hurricane Irene. Barring a plague of locusts, expect the US Galaxy S II phones to be announced tomorrow.
• The man some police say is the hacker Topiary goes back to court tomorrow August 30. We do know his name is Jake Davis and he's accused of five offences including unauthorised computer access and conspiracy to carry out a DDoS.. and he wears pretty cool shades
• On September 27th, the Silicon Valley International Game Developers Association is holding the first-ever HTML5 developer conference in San Francisco for HTML5, JavaScript and mobile developer communities.... unless there's another html5 conference that i don't know about
• GScreen's Spacebook begins shipping this November and attempts to make editing video on a laptop the real deal with 10-lbs of dual 17-inch screens - entry level model for $1899, but the higher-end model will cost you $2099
• Nintendo's Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword now has a November 20th release... the standalone game will run you $50 or a bundle that includes a spectacular golden Wiimote will be $70

Email

"Hi guys. My travels today took me to Best Buy where I saw the most unbelievable thing. Flip cameras on sale. Many months ago, Cisco discontinued the product for many of the same reasons Palm did. What I am curious about is the difference between Cisco and Palm's philosophy regarding their inventory. Cisco seems content to draw down the flip camera inventory, while HP seems desperate to get rid of their touch pads. Why do you think that Cisco is willing to take a loss on their products to get rid of them, yet Cisco is content selling Flip cameras at whatever pace the market will bare?

- John M."

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Production Information

• Edited by: Jeff Stewart
• Notes:

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