Author: Serkadis

Opera has come out with its latest State of the Mobile Web report, which it publishes monthly, reveling some, in a way, surprising results. Facebook has now become the most popular social network on the mobile web overtaking the Russian VKontakte for the first time. This is surprising in at least two ways, either because Facebook managed to ov… (read more)

Other Great AndroidGuys Posts

• November 25, 2009 — Best Buy Mobile Offering 5 Android Under $100 (23)
• December 17, 2009 — HTC Offering Widgets in Android Market for Sense UI Handsets (16)
• November 5, 2009 — By the Way, Verizon’s DROID ERIS Arrives Tomorrow at $99 (15)
• November 4, 2009 — Check it Out! It’s an Unboxed DROID Eris! (11)
• November 3, 2009 — Verizon to Charge $15 for Exchange Access on the Droid? [UPDATE] (21)

According to figures produced by Automotive News, the Saab 9-4X crossover has entered production and GM has built 147 units at its Ramos Arizpe plant in Mexico, with 49 units built last week. The move comes despite GM not confirming that the 9-4X will be sold and as it allegedly continues the “wind-down” process.

The Saab 9-4X crossover is based on the Cadillac SRX and is built on GM’s Theta platform with all-wheel-drive.

GM’s new permanent CEO Edward Whitacre confirmed yesterday that there has been no deal on the sale of Saab.

Update: Bloomberg is reporting today that GM is close to announcing a deal to sell Saab to Spyker.

– By: Omar Rana

Source: AutoCar

Boeing (NYSE: BA) said today that a company-sponsored special appeals program has committed more than $1.8 million to support relief and rebuilding efforts in Haiti.

Boeing employee and retiree donations, which total more than $910,000 to date, are supporting American Red Cross relief efforts in Haiti. Those donations are being matched by the company, up to $1 million.

Company matching funds will be distributed in two parts: The first $100,000 also will support Red Cross relief efforts, while the remaining money–which could total $900,000 if the match goal is achieved–will be distributed by Boeing to support nongovernmental agencies that will help Haiti rebuild in the areas of education, health care and transportation.

“We recognize that there will be a long recovery process, not only for the people of Haiti but also for the country’s hospitals, schools and roads.

For this reason we will direct a major part of our contribution to partner with recovery organizations that are helping to build Haiti’s future,” said Anne Roosevelt, vice president, Global Corporate Citizenship.

Roosevelt said the company match will extend through Feb. 12.

Boeing, through its Global Corporate Citizenship organization, supports disaster response around the world in partnership with nongovernmental agencies, nonprofits and others as well as its employees and retirees through a variety of ways, including cash contributions, volunteer efforts and in-kind donations.

MEDIA CONTACT:

Ann Beach, (312) 544-2997

Nancy’s showcase knocked her off her feet — literally. A contestant passed out after learning that she could win a car on The Price Is Right Monday.

There’s dark clouds brewing in the friendly skies and sometimes it’s the passengers fault. George Hobica writes, “I was on a plane recently, first class, on American, where the guy sitting next to me shook his glass as the flight attendant was passing by and said “More ice”–the FA said, “What’s the magic word” and the guy said, “Oh, you mean I’m supposed to say please? I just want more ice” … and she said, “You want more ice, it’s up in the galley. Go get it yourself.”

IDC has predicted that Windows Mobile will grow strongly between 2009 and 2013.  Noting that 18.3 million Windows Mobile handsets were shipped last year (7% down on 2008), IDC predicted Windows Mobile will boost its "consumer appeal" by being easier to use and supporting more multimedia applications and games. They forecast 51.7 million Windows Mobile handsets will be shipped in 3 years time.

While they project Android to grow explosively, that still places Windows Mobile as the OS with the second fastest growth over the period at 183%. The market itself is expected to grow by 20.1% each year.

Of note is that, according to the forecast, Windows Mobile is set to overtake the iPhone again in total yearly shipments.

The study found that Linux and webOS shipments will struggle throughout the forecast period. Palm’s HTML based operating system, despite growing steadily, will capture limited market share due to limited deployment and availability of devices across multiple carriers.

IDC expects Windows Mobile to grow its market share by 3%, from 10% in 2009 to 13% in 2013, while both RIM and the iPhone will see a drop, RIM by 2% and the iPhone by 1%.

Another interesting factoid is that HTC only shipped 11.7 million smartphones in 2009, some of these of course being Android devices.  This is another indication that HTC is no longer the majority of the Windows Mobile market, and more attention should be paid to other players such as LG and certainly Samsung, who has always been a strong Windows Mobile partner.

Read more here.

First Lady Michelle Obama’s wax figure made its debut appearance on The Wendy Williams Show yesterday. Madame Tussauds New York will be featuring the First Lady’s image beginning in Black History Month and they wanted to reveal the figure on The Wendy Show. Of course Wendy introduced Mrs O in a way that only she can, critiquing the hair and the wedding ring. How you doin First Lady? 

Posted by Aminah Hanan

A recent academic study at the University of Oxford in Great Britain has shown that normal human beings are limited in engaging and sustaining social, acceptable relationships at an average of 150 friends. The study also takes a swing at the artificial environment created by social networks and the false illusion that a person can have thousand… (read more)

Take a peek at the first images from Oliver Stone’s Wall Street 2: Money Never Sleeps, starring Shia LeBeouf and Michael Douglas. Douglas reprises the role that won him an Oscar in the 1987 original, while former Even Stevens star LeBeouf plays a successful investment banker whose firm is being threatened by bankruptcy.

Some crazy programmers have overclocked the Droid to 1.1GHz, making it faster than the Nexus one. The Droid usually runs at about 600MHz so bumping it up to 1.1 was fairly dangerous. However, with a little tweaking the boys at AllDroid were able to find a stable speed at about 800MHz.

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Need a TV for the bedroom, rumpus room, or home office but don’t want to spend a penny more than $129.99 plus $5 for shipping? Then this is the perfect deal for you. Sellout.Woot! is selling a choice of one of three Philips/Magnavox 19-inch HDTVs for the aforementioned price of $129.99 plus $5 shipping.

Each TV has HDMI inputs and all feature 720p resolution and ATSC tuners. One carries the Magnavox name, while the other two are Philipseseses.

The Philips TVs seem to be a slightly better option due to higher contrast ratios, two HDMI inputs each, VGA inputs and lighter weights than the Magnavox, but if you’re related to the Magnavox family then you really have to buy the Magnavox TV in order to keep the peace.

Philips/Magnavox 19” LCD HDTV w/ HDMI [sellout.woot.com]

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Filed under: Other Events, Developer, SDK

Isn’t it weird that Apple has taken down devcenter a day before their big “newest creation” announcement? Normally we expect site outages on the day of announcementpalooza, not the day before. Maybe it’s a maintenance/infrastructure thing that needs to go live and be tested before the big day. Maybe it’s 3.2. Maybe it’s an attack of rainbow unicorn puppy dog devs. We don’t know. All we know is that the site has been down since about 5AM Eastern. (I write this at about 10:30 Eastern). iTunes Connect remains unaffected by this outage.

TUAWThe iPhone Devcenter is DOWN originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Tue, 26 Jan 2010 10:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Our friends at Collecta, a fantastic real-time search application, have just launched a new feature for all site owners: free, customizable, embeddable widgets.

Widgets can be created around any search terms imaginable and customized in a number of ways. Results are automatically refreshed, just as they are on the Collecta site, and include results from blogs, microblogs, news feeds and photo sharing services.

Sponsor

The ability to enrich a website or blog with streaming, real-time content is something that’s been offered from a smattering of other companies. For example, Facebook offers a Live Stream Box that allows site owners to stream relevant Facebook status updates next to their own content.

Still, Facebook statuses encompass only a limited amount and type of information available on the real-time web. Collecta, on the other hand, boasts more than 10 million unique content sources, including Twitter, WordPress, Flickr, The Associated Press, CNN, and Reuters.

Customization options include the ability to choose one’s search terms as well as the ability to customize the header, control the scroll rate and link to an external style sheet to integrate the widget with a website’s existing look and feel.

You can see the widget in action powering the streaming results for MySpace’s breaking news page focused on Haiti – or just check out the Real-Time Tech widget we’ve embedded below.

For more on Collecta and the evolving market, check out the ReadWriteWeb Collecta and Real-Time Search archives.

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Have we reached app store saturation yet? Apparently not. PC Manufacturer Acer has just announced their plans to launch their own application store designed for all the operating systems they support including Microsoft Windows, Windows Mobile, Google’s Android platform, and Google Chrome. The new store will launch mid-year for the first three platforms listed with apps for Chrome set to launch later on. Although no exact time frame was given, the Chrome apps are likely to appear by the third or fourth quarter of 2010 to coincide with the debut of Acer’s line of Chrome OS netbooks, a group that will account for 10% of Acer’s ultra-portable PCs.

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The Acer App Store

Acer, currently the world’s second-largest computer vendor, mentioned the application store among a series of initiatives designed to boost the company’s profitability, according to a report on Bloomberg.com. From what it sounds like, Acer is glomming onto every major tech trend with plans that include everything from an e-reader to a Tablet PC. In fact, Acer chairman J.T. Want even admits this is the case: “We’d like to proactively purse any opportunity,” he said.

One of those opportunities is the new Acer application store, an online venture that will offer hundreds of different applications, both free and paid. However, the company wouldn’t share pricing details or name developers, noted the Bloomberg story.

Although application stores are typically associated with mobile phones, Acer wouldn’t be the first vendor to launch an applications store designed for use on PCs. Earlier this month, chipmaker Intel launched the AppUp site, an application store designed specifically for the netbook computers. Interestingly enough, Intel’s AppUp site is meant to be a white label offering which PC manufacturers can customize to their own needs. At the time of its launch at this year’s Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, Intel announced several partnerships with other PC makers to bring the AppUp store to consumers. Included among those launch partners was Acer. Gianpiero Morbello, Acer’s Worldwide Marketing VP said that by accessing the AppUp catalog, their company would be able to distribute “innovative software downloads to Acer Atom processor-based netbook customers and move to easily support additional Acer customers on any device powered by an Intel processor.”

So Is This Yet Another App Store?

However, given the (sparse) details surrounding the upcoming Acer app store, it sounds as if this new store is Acer’s own venture. Intel’s store only supports Windows netbooks and the Moblin Linux operating system – not mobile devices like Windows Mobile or Google Android and definitely not Google’s new netbook OS, Google Chrome.

While it’s understandable that Acer wants to generate some hype surrounding their products by offering an app store to their customers, at this point they’re simply confusing the issue. Many of the platforms Acer plans to support already offer their own application stores – even Google’s Chrome OS, the web-based operating system set to launch by year-end. And one could argue that the internet itself has been the app store for Windows computers for many years now.

Note: We’ve reached out to both Intel and Acer in hopes of clarification and will update the post if either company responds.

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iPhone/Palm Pre: Apple and/or AT&T don’t want the Google Voice service to have its own iPhone app, and we think that stinks. Google is finally releasing the next best thing: a mobile site that basically replicates a dedicated Google Voice app.

The big advantage of Google’s new Voice app (which should show up later today, or possibly more gradually, for registered Voice users) is the direct contact access. Rather than having to store secondary numbers or use the somewhat old-school-looking Voice mobile site to pull up your contacts, Google Voice’s new webapp provides super-quick, as-you-type access to your Google Contacts. The interface is similar to what you see when you visit Voice in a full browser, with the same mobile look and feel as Gmail, Reader, and other products have recently received.

When you dial, it’s not the familiar experience of having Google Voice call you, then call the other person—it’s a direct dial to that person, probably using those same secondary numbers Google seems to have stockpiles of.

You’ll want to make sure your phone’s contacts are synced up with Google if you’re keen on using Google’s Voice app. It’s a free service, and requires a Google Voice account (which we hear they’re giving out more regularly

If you’re already seeing the new Google Voice app in your iPhone or Pre browser, tell us what you think in the comments.

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The fun, write-while-at-the-wheel times are over for truckers and bus drivers, as the second nationwide piece of legislation has been adopted in the US, prohibiting drivers of large commercial trucks and buses to text while driving. It follows the bill adopted in December, through which drivers of federal government vehicles were asked the same thing.

According to Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood, the ban takes effect immediately. If broken, the rule can cost the driver a huge fine of up $… (read more)

In the latest PIMCO investor letter, Bill Gross brings up a chart he likes to call “The Ring of Fire.”

As you can see, this chart/graph details the amount of debt a country has in relation to their GDP.

Countries in the fire zone are headed for hell in a handbasket.PIMCO predicts these countries, which include the U.S., will increase public debt to greater than 90% over the next few years, which will in turn stall growth.

PIMCO: The most vulnerable countries in 2010 are shown in PIMCO’s chart “The Ring of Fire.” These red zone countries are ones with the potential for public debt to exceed 90% of GDP within a few years’ time, which would slow GDP by 1% or more. The yellow and green areas are considered to be the most conservative and potentially most solvent, with the potential for higher growth.

Don’t miss: The world’s 10 biggest sovereign risks >

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See Also:

• PIMCO: There’s No Way The Market Can Absorb The Fed’s Giant Balance Sheet Once It’s Time To Tighten
• Corporate Borrowing Costs Rise, Hit Highest Level Since November
• Greek Minister Tries To Dump The Debt Problem On Retail Investors, Sending Bond Yields To Worst Level Ever

Filed under: GM, Saab, Spyker

We have some news to report about the on-again-off-again saga that surrounds the fate of Saab. The Swedish government has suspended trading of Spyker shares, which we’re told usually happens before a big announcement is made. We’re also hearing reports that Swedish news channels are quoting Spyker chief Victor Muller as saying an announcement will definitely be made later today.

From what we can gather, the deal on the table is that Spyker will give current owner General Motors $75 million while allowing the U.S. automaker to retain $100 million in Saab liquidity. GM will also reportedly get $325 million in preferred shares of Spyker-owned Saab.

Regardless of what’s announced, we’re hoping this circus comes to an end soon. That probably won’t happen. If the Spyker deal doesn’t happen, the Genii group led by Formula One boss Bernie Ecclestone will bid for the Swedish luxury brand again, according to reports, despite having withdrawn its bid on Monday.

Stay tuned, as one way or another we’ll have news concerning Saab’s future later today.

[Source: Autocar, WhatCar?, SaabsUnited | Image: David McNew/Getty]

Report: Sweden suspends Spyker share trading, Saab deal may be announced later today originally appeared on Autoblog on Tue, 26 Jan 2010 10:40:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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