T-Mobile Android Phone Release Seen Bringing 'Avalanche'

SAN FRANCISCO -(Dow Jones)- With Deutsche Telekom AG's (DT) T-Mobile USA Inc.
preparing to ship out its first cellphones built on Google Inc.'s (GOOG) open
Android platform later this year, wireless carriers are expecting an avalanche
of innovation from users - and radical changes to what customers expect and
demand.

But some disagree on where start-ups should focus their efforts if they aim to
make money in this fast-changing landscape.

At the Wireless Innovations 2008 conference in Redwood City, Calif., sponsored
by Dow Jones & Co., Joe Sims, vice president and general manager of T-Mobile's
broadband and new business division, said he had already seen prototypes of the
company's Android-based phone, which are scheduled to ship in this year's final
quarter.

(This story also appeared in Venture Wire, a newsletter published by Dow Jones
& Co. that covers the venture-capital industry.)

"I'm impressed," he said. "We will have more than one product...(The move to
an open platform) will be innovation across the board, not just one device."

T-Mobile, like other carriers, was leery of Google at first, because the open
platform that the search giant was pushing seemed radical and untested, Sims
said. T-Mobile is now a part of Google's Open Handset Alliance, as is chip maker
Qualcomm Inc. (QCOM).

Like T-Mobile, Qualcomm was "skeptical" of Google's plan at first, said Sayeed
Choudhury, Qualcomm's vice president of product management for CDMA
technologies. "But we got over that hurdle when we saw the use-case models,"
Choudhury said. "The Web-browsing, the taking and uploading of pictures."

Choudhury said he expects big changes to happen fast once the Android phones
get into consumers' hands. Nedim Fresko, director of strategic platform
initiatives at Blackberry maker Research in Motion Ltd. (RIMM), predicted T-
Mobile's release would be a "wake-up call for innovation."

But conference panelists differed on what areas of mobile technology - video
distribution, social networking, enterprise or entertainment - were likely to
heat up first.

"Security is the issue," Fresko said. "People want secure, managed and safe"
networks.

John Smelzer, a senior vice president and manager of News Corp.'s (NWS) Fox
Entertainment Group Inc.'s interactive media division, said photo and video
distribution would be the "next killer app."

News Corp. owns Dow Jones & Co., publisher of The Wall Street Journal and Dow
Jones Newswires.

Fox isn't immediately interested in moving social networks to mobile, Smelzer
said, but it sees great potential in start-ups working on applications that
replicate the broader online experience on handsets - for instance, middleware
companies, content aggregators, ad distributors and companies working on
encoding and transcoding data.

Subscription-based video has served Fox well, Smelzer said, and the company
plans to continue that model as networks and handsets move toward openness.

"For the long tail, we think it will be mobile Web," he said.

T-Mobile says all of its offerings will be tailored to the consumer, and the
consumer, in turn, will tell the carriers what they expect their mobile devices
to be able to do.

Panelists agreed that the major, inevitable changes in the next few years
won't be top-down changes, but will be a response from carriers to consumers,
who are going mobile in ever greater numbers and learning to expect much more
from their phones. In addition, they said, the time is ripe for innovators and
start-ups to deliver what consumers want in new, possibly lucrative ways.

"The college kids out there have all the ingredients, finally," said J.H. Kah,
senior vice president of Korean cellular service provider SK Telecom Co. (SKM).

"It's so easy and cheap for these kids to start new ventures," Kah said. "VCs
ought to look at very early-stage (companies), but the real winners (will be)
those that stick around a few years."

-By Timothy Hay, Dow Jones Newsletters; 415-439-6625

[Via: Cnn.com]

Google releases new Android SDK

Android SDK m5-rc14 now available today.

There are a couple of changes in m5-rc14 I'd like to highlight:

• New user interface - As I mentioned when we introduced the m3 version
  of the Android SDK, we're continuing to refine the UI that's available
  for Android. m5-rc14 replaces the previous placeholder with a new UI,
  but as before, work on it is still in-progress.
• Layout animations - Developers can now create layout animations for their applications using the capabilities introduced in the android.view.animation package. Check out the LayoutAnimation*.java files in the APIDemos sample code for examples of how this works.
• Geo-coding - android.location.Geocoder
  enables developers to forward and reverse geo-code (i.e. translate an
  address into a coordinate and vice-versa), and also search for
  businesses.
• New media codecs - The MediaPlayer class has added support for the OGG Vorbis, MIDI, XMF, iMelody, RTTL/RTX, and OTA audio file formats.
• Updated Eclipse plug-in
  - A new version of ADT is available and provides improvements to the
  Android developer experience. In particular, check out the new Android
  Manifest editor.

You can download the new SDK here:
http://code.google.com/android/download.html

Upgrading?

If you have already downloaded an earlier version of the SDK and developed applications on it, please read the Upgrading the SDK document instead. The Upgrading document explains
how to migrate your existing development environment and applications to the new SDK release. The document also provides
information that you will find useful during the upgrade, such as lists of framework and API changes.

To develop Android applications using the code and tools in the
Android SDK, you need a suitable development computer and development
environment, as described below.

Supported Operating Systems

• Windows XP or Vista
• Mac OS X 10.4.8 or later (x86 only)
• Linux (tested on Linux Ubuntu Dapper Drake)

Supported Development Environments

• Eclipse IDE
  
  • Eclipse 3.2, 3.3 (Europa)
  • Eclipse JDT plugin (included in most Eclipse IDE packages)
  • WST (optional, but needed for the Android Editors feature; included in most Eclipse IDE packages)
  • JDK 5 or JDK 6 (JRE alone is not sufficient)
  • Not compatible with Gnu Compiler for Java (gcj)
  • Android Development Tools plugin (optional)
  
  
• Other development environments or IDEs
  
  • JDK 5 or JDK 6 (JRE alone is not sufficient)
  • Not compatible with Gnu Compiler for Java (gcj)
  • Apache Ant 1.6.5 or later for Linux and Mac, 1.7 or later for Windows
  
  

Note: If JDK is already installed on your development computer,
please take a moment to make sure that it meets the version
requirements listed above. In
particular, note that some Linux distributions may include JDK 1.4 or
Gnu Compiler for Java, both of which are not supported for Android
development.

Take a look at our extensive gallery of pics right here.




Technorati Tags: android sdk, android applications, google phone, gphone

CES: Spotted, First Possible Android Smartphone

A Chinese OEM was showing off a Phone at CES 2008 that will be running Android by March.

Here is what PCMag said about the specs of the Phone:

The GW4 (aka the PDA Dual Net Phone) is a
slab-style smart phone with a touch screen and QWERTY keyboard, that
was running a version of MontaVista Linux 2.6 when we saw it at the
event. But according to Wistron spokeswoman Molly Lin, the GW4 will be
running Android by March, when Wistron will start selling it to more
prominent firms for branding. As a manufacturing house, Wistron has
made desktop and laptop PCs for Dell, HP, IBM and other top brands.

The GW4 we saw had surprisingly low specs, but that's a testament to
the efficiency of Linux, Wistron execs said. The GW4 is based on a TI
OMAP 1710 chipset with a 216-MHz processor and only 64 MB of program
memory, yet the model we saw ran the Opera Web browser, played video
and flipped between a range of Web widget applications like weather and
stocks. The user interface was very responsive.
The phone will come in two tri-band GSM/GPRS versions, one for the U.S.
and one for Europe and Asia. The very slow cellular GPRS (not EDGE)
network will be complemented by 802.11g Wi-Fi with a built-in SIP VOIP
client for Internet calling. A higher-speed 3G version will come out by
the end of 2008. The GW4 also has a 2.5-inch, 320x240 touch screen and
2-megapixel camera.

To read the whole Article just click the PCMag link above.





Technorati Tags: android, google phone, gphone, ces 2008, ces, GW4

Android Password Manager

This is an adaptation of PasswordSafe by Steven Osborn (released under the Apache License) which is basic password manager for the Android platform. The source code have been adapted to use db4o instead of SQLite which makes the handling of persistence much more intuitive while still being fast.

Details

The application basically stores login information for websites such as url, username and password in a secure way using 128 Bit AES Encryption. The user must provide the correct password in order to access the application and this password is then used to encrypt/decrypt the data.

This is a sample video of the db4o powered application running on the Android Emulator:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UFSD44AcBwM

If you check the source code (see the end of this page) you'll see that the the DBHelper class (SQLite persistence) has been replaced by the Db4oHelper class (db4o persistence). Let me now show you some of the differences between handling persistence with db4o and SQLite.

Link for more info and download:

http://developer.db4o.com/ProjectSpaces/view.aspx/Android_Password_Manager

db4o - the database for Android

db4o: Persistence for Android

• Native Java queries
• 600K footprint
• Easiest database you have ever used
• Object persistence out-of-the-box

db4o - the database for Android
Google has created a stir with the release of the Android SDK, a comprehensive software platform for mobile phones that was recently announced at the Open Handset Alliance. The Java programming API and the fact that it is free makes it an ideal platform for millions of application developers - and immediately compatible to db4o.

Only hours after the Android release the db4objects team had some quick evaluations of the SDK running with db4o. The result: db4o runs without a snag on Android and is much easier to use than SQLite.

Important Links:

• Android Incubator ProjectSpace
• Android Discussion Forum
• Why Android will start the mobile Tornado
• Android brings handsets to the next level - and open doors a mile wide for db4o
• db4A - database for Android
• Android Password Manager demo application

Use Object-Oriented Database Technology for Android...
While Your Competitors Struggle With Flat Files or SQL.

Embed db4o's super-light database engine into your Android project and store any object structure with only one line of code - no more mapping required!

Powerful and lean at the same time, you can now build more data- and feature-rich applications, that propel you far ahead of competition and that make your users and customers cheer.

Enjoy superior performance, zero-administration, transaction safety, encryption, automatic deployment, shared memory processing, and much more. Out of the box.

db4o for Android
Download and test drive the world's most popular object database! It's free and open source under the GPL!

http://www.sybase.com/

Keep this company on your Google Apps radar. More to come in the near future.

http://www.sybase.com/

Industry Leaders Announce Open Platform for Mobile Devices

Group Pledges to Unleash Innovation for Mobile Users Worldwide

MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif.; BONN, Germany; TAOYUAN, Taiwan; SAN DIEGO, Calif.; SCHAUMBERG, Ill., November 5, 2007 -- A broad alliance of leading technology and wireless companies today joined forces to announce the development of Android, the first truly open and comprehensive platform for mobile devices. Google Inc., T-Mobile, HTC, Qualcomm, Motorola and others have collaborated on the development of Android through the Open Handset Alliance, a multinational alliance of technology and mobile industry leaders.

This alliance shares a common goal of fostering innovation on mobile devices and giving consumers a far better user experience than much of what is available on today's mobile platforms. By providing developers a new level of openness that enables them to work more collaboratively, Android will accelerate the pace at which new and compelling mobile services are made available to consumers.

With nearly 3 billion users worldwide, the mobile phone has become the most personal and ubiquitous communications device. However, the lack of a collaborative effort has made it a challenge for developers, wireless operators and handset manufacturers to respond as quickly as possible to the ever-changing needs of savvy mobile consumers. Through Android, developers, wireless operators and handset manufacturers will be better positioned to bring to market innovative new products faster and at a much lower cost. The end result will be an unprecedented mobile platform that will enable wireless operators and manufacturers to give their customers better, more personal and more flexible mobile experiences.

Thirty-four companies have formed the Open Handset Alliance, which aims to develop technologies that will significantly lower the cost of developing and distributing mobile devices and services. The Android platform is the first step in this direction -- a fully integrated mobile "software stack" that consists of an operating system, middleware, user-friendly interface and applications. Consumers should expect the first phones based on Android to be available in the second half of 2008.

The Android platform will be made available under one of the most progressive, developer-friendly open-source licenses, which gives mobile operators and device manufacturers significant freedom and flexibility to design products. Next week the Alliance will release an early access software development kit to provide developers with the tools necessary to create innovative and compelling applications for the platform.

Android holds the promise of unprecedented benefits for consumers, developers and manufacturers of mobile services and devices. Handset manufacturers and wireless operators will be free to customize Android in order to bring to market innovative new products faster and at a much lower cost. Developers will have complete access to handset capabilities and tools that will enable them to build more compelling and user-friendly services, bringing the Internet developer model to the mobile space. And consumers worldwide will have access to less expensive mobile devices that feature more compelling services, rich Internet applications and easier-to-use interfaces -- ultimately creating a superior mobile experience.

Open Software, Open Device, Open Ecosystem

"This partnership will help unleash the potential of mobile technology for billions of users around the world. A fresh approach to fostering innovation in the mobile industry will help shape a new computing environment that will change the way people access and share information in the future," said Google Chairman and CEO Eric Schmidt. "Today's announcement is more ambitious than any single 'Google Phone' that the press has been speculating about over the past few weeks. Our vision is that the powerful platform we're unveiling will power thousands of different phone models."

"As a founding member of the Open Handset Alliance, T-Mobile is committed to innovation and fostering an open platform for wireless services to meet the rapidly evolving and emerging needs of wireless customers," said René Obermann, Chief Executive Officer, Deutsche Telekom, parent company of T-Mobile. "Google has been an established partner for T-Mobile's groundbreaking approach to bring the mobile open Internet to the mass market. We see the Android platform as an exciting opportunity to launch robust wireless Internet and Web 2.0 services for T-Mobile customers in the US and Europe in 2008."

"HTC's trademark on the mobile industry has been its ability to drive cutting-edge innovation into a wide variety of mobile devices to create the perfect match for individuals," said Peter Chou, Chief Executive Officer, HTC Corp. "Our participation in the Open Handset Alliance and integration of the Android platform in the second half of 2008 enables us to expand our device portfolio into a new category of connected mobile phones that will change the complexion of the mobile industry and re-create user expectations of the mobile phone experience."

"The convergence of the wireless and Internet industries is creating new partnerships, evolving business models and driving innovation," said Dr. Paul E. Jacobs, Chief Executive Officer of Qualcomm. "We are extremely pleased to be participating in the Open Handset Alliance, whose mission is to help build the leading open-source application platform for 3G networks. The proliferation of open-standards-based handsets will provide an exciting new opportunity to create compelling services and devices. As a result, we are committing research and development resources to enable the Android platform and to create the best always-connected consumer experience on our chipsets."

"Motorola has long been an advocate of open software for mobile platforms. Today, we're excited to continue this support by joining Google and others in the announcement of the Open Handset Alliance and Android platform. Motorola plans to leverage the Android platform to enable seamless, connected services and rich consumer experiences in future Motorola products," said Ed Zander, Chairman and CEO of Motorola, Inc.

Open Handset Alliance Founding Members

Aplix (www.aplixcorp.com), Ascender Corporation (www.ascendercorp.com), Audience (www.audience.com), Broadcom (www.broadcom.com), China Mobile (www.chinamobile.com), eBay (www.ebay.com), Esmertec (www.esmertec.com), Google (www.google.com), HTC (www.htc.com), Intel (www.intel.com), KDDI (www.kddi.com), Living Image (www.livingimage.jp), LG (www.lge.com), Marvell (www.marvell.com), Motorola (www.motorola.com), NMS Communications (www.nmscommunications.com), Noser (www.noser.com), NTT DoCoMo, Inc. (www.nttdocomo.com), Nuance (www.nuance.com), Nvidia (www.nvidia.com), PacketVideo (www.packetvideo.com), Qualcomm (www.qualcomm.com), Samsung (www.samsung.com), SiRF (www.sirf.com), SkyPop (www.skypop.com), SONiVOX (www.sonivoxrocks.com), Sprint Nextel (www.sprint.com), Synaptics (www.synaptics.com), TAT - The Astonishing Tribe (www.tat.se), Telecom Italia (www.telecomitalia.com), Telefónica (www.telefonica.es), Texas Instruments (www.ti.com), T-Mobile (www.t-mobile.com), Wind River (www.windriver.com)

For more information about the Open Handset Alliance, visit the website at www.openhandsetalliance.com.

Verizon Opens Network in 2008

Verizon Wireless announced that it plans to open it's wireless network in 2008. It seem like Verizon finally "Gets" it. I'm sure that saw what Google is doing with Android and didn't want to be the odd one out.

In an interview Chief Executive Officer Lowell McAdam says it now makes sense to get behind Android. "We're planning on using Android, Android is an enabler of what we do."

Now the only thing to do is wait. Will Verizon really open their network or will it just be a half assed attempt just to fit in with the rest of the crowd?

We will see soon. Good Luck Verizon.

MyMobiSafe® Mobile Antivirus next Android App?

MyMobiSafe^® Mobile Antivirus Security Solution
http://www.mymobisafe.com/

I stumbled upon this site today while searching for news about Android.
Could we be seeing the first Mobile Antivirus application for Android?

And could this become the winner of the $10 Million Dollar Prize?

Do you really think there is a need for Mobile Antivirus Applications at the moment? In the future?
I bet as these Phones get more popular and we see more applications we will also be seeing more need for Security for the Mobile Platform.

Only time will tell.

» Google’s big TV plan: Android on set-top boxes? | Between the Lines | ZDNet.com

Following Credit Suisse’s $900 price target for Google one nagging question remains: Where–and how–is Google going to generate large TV advertising revenue?

If you recall Credit Suisse analyst Heath Terry slapped a big price target on Google and made some assumptions for 2010. One of them was a base case that Google would have TV advertising revenue of $416 million in 2010, up from nothing today. The bullish case called for $1 billion in TV ad revenue with the bear case being $130 million.

All day, I was wondering how Google would get there. Its deal with Echostar isn’t going to cut it. And TV partners are wary of Google anyway.

However, Tech Crunch’s Erick Schonfeld has a working theory. Google will take its Android software to the set-top box, get a bunch of developers on board and give us the future of television. As to be expected, few are commenting on the record about this plan. And Google is doing its denial without denying routine (it likes these rumors).

Color me skeptical. Here’s why:

Android is unproven. There are high hopes for an Android announcement that so far is a nice press release, a developer kit and a partner roster that is a bit noncommittal about the whole thing. If Android were launched by any company other than Google it would be classified as vaporware already. Before Android makes it into a handset, we’re leaping toward the set-top box.

Set-top boxes are difficult to get into. There are two primary makers of set-top boxes–Cisco and Motorola. Any effort for an open platform has to go through them. And then there’s Microsoft, which has spent billions over the years and is just now getting some traction. Sure, the ability for consumers to buy their own set-top boxes (Googlebox) is a plus, but the set-top box sure is getting crowded. On the bright side, Cisco has Web 2.0 religion and Motorola is an Android partner.

Partners matter. In the land of the set-top box, Google will run into the same problem it has in mobile–entrenched players that tell you what you put on their network. Google can have the best set-top software on the planet, but it needs Comcast, Time Warner, Verizon, AT&T and Cablevision to play along.

Maybe we don’t want our set-top boxes to be all Webified. Schonfeld argues quite well that the set-top box is a computer that doesn’t do much. What if it could? Schonfeld argues that a TV screen polluted with widgets, weather, sports scores and stock quotes could be a better experience. Well, I can have all of that now with Verizon FiOS TV via Microsoft’s widgets. I’ve hit the widget button maybe twice for giggles. TV is a different experience and more often than not I want all the boxes, TVs and technology to disappear in the background. Even the news scroll has become annoying. Some of us just want to watch the game in peace–without better targeted ads, widgets and other clutter.

Rumor: First Android App To Come From WhatsOpen.com?

Here are some leaked Screen's of the First App from WhatsOpen.com for Android.

Looks Interesting. More info as soon as it's available.