Author: Serkadis

It appears that Google has been caught doing paid links again.

Our friend Aaron Wall at SEOBook has found some examples of an apparent “‘series’ of advertorials” for Google products like AdWords, Google Analytics, Chromebooks, and Hangouts. He points to content from The Globe And Mail and Edutopia that claim to be “brought to you by Google” and “sponsored by Chromebooks” respectively. He points to a handful of questionable links within the content.

“None of those links in the content use nofollow, in spite of many of them having Google Analytics tracking URLs on them,” he writes. “And I literally spent less than 10 minutes finding the above examples & writing this article. Surely Google insiders know more about Google’s internal marketing campaigns than I do. Which leads one to ask the obvious (but uncomfortable) question: why doesn’t Google police themselves when they are policing others? If their algorithmic ideals are true, shouldn’t they apply to Google as well?”

As you may recall, Google got some attention last year for a very similar situation, which it blamed on a different firm, who was working on its behalf. Google ultimately penalized its Chrome landing page in search results, and left it in the penalty box for the requisite “at least 60 days“.

While Google has yet to comment directly on this particular case, it seems likely that it will follow a similar path. Danny Sullivan at Search Engine Land shares this statement from the company:

We’ll investigate this report just as we would a report about any other company, and take the same action we would for any other company.

As Sullivan notes, this is far from the first time Google itself has engaged in paid links. Even before last year’s Chrome incident there were other cases.

“Google’s also penalized Google Japan in 2009 for paid links, its AdWords help area for cloaking in 2010, and the BeatThatQuote service it acquired in 2011 was penalized on day it was purchased over spam violations,” he writes.

The timing of this new discovery is quite interesting. Google just (apparently) slapped UK flower seller Interflora for paid links, along with the newspaper sites who had the “advertorials”. Google did not specifically comment on this, but “randomly” put up a generic post about selling links that pass PageRank on its Webmaster Central blog just over that situation got some media coverage.

In Google’s post, Matt Cutts wrote, “Please be wary if someone approaches you and wants to pay you for links or ‘advertorial’ pages on your site that pass PageRank. Selling links (or entire advertorial pages with embedded links) that pass PageRank violates our quality guidelines, and Google does take action on such violations. The consequences for a linkselling site start with losing trust in Google’s search results, as well as reduction of the site’s visible PageRank in the Google Toolbar. The consequences can also include lower rankings for that site in Google’s search results.”

It will be interesting to see how Google proceeds with the series Wall has brought to the forefront, and if Google comments directly on the situation.

Image: Aaron Wall

What a day folks — mere moments talking up Asus’ new Padfone Infinity, CEO Jonney Shih just revealed that the oft-rumored Fonepad is an honest-to-goodness product. Confused? I don’t blame you.

The PadFone is a Android-powered smartphone that physical docks into a larger tablet enclosure. The Fonepad on the other hand is an 7-inch Android tablet that can make phone calls. The rumors of Asus releasing an Intel-powered device have come true with the Padfone, as it sports an Atom Z2420 processor, 1GB of RAM, and the requisite 3G wireless radio to make all those tablet calls possible. On the plus side, Asus tends to leave Android alone for the most part, and the particular Android 4.1 build that’s loaded up on the Fonepad seems similarly unfettered.

If it sounds novel, well, it’s really not — Samsung baked similar voice call functionality into its Galaxy Note 8.0, and to my surprise it actually worked really well. Whether or not Asus will be able to provide a similarly impressive experience is a question I can’t answer until I track down a Fonepad for some more hands-on testing, but the price is certainly right. The Fonepad is slated to launch this April in the UK with a €219 price tag attached to it, but Asus also offered a price in U.S. dollars ($249 to be precise). It’s too early to call that a confirmation for an eventual U.S. launch (especially considering that Samsung will likely excise the voice call feature from the U.S. Note 8.0 model), but it’s enough to make you hope at least.

Sony Mobile Communications chief Kunimasa Suzuki took the stage to deliver something of a state of the mobile union address at MWC early this morning, and took a very brief detour to talk availability for one of Sony’s most promising products. As expected, there was no mention of any new hardware during Suzuki’s address (sorry Xperia SP hopefuls), but he did confirm that the company’s Xperia Tablet Z would begin to rollout globally starting in Q2 of this year.

In the United States, the 16GB model is slated to retail for $499, while a larger 32 GB model will sell for $599.

The Tablet Z, if you’ll recall, is an exceedingly trim Jelly Bean-powered tablet that was first announced for the Japanese market back in late January. Nestled inside the dustproof chassis are a 1.5GHz quad-core Qualcomm processor, 2GB of RAM, and 32 GBs of flash storage, as well as Wi-Fi, LTE, and NFC radios. It’s also one of the only Sony Android tablets in recent memory that doesn’t rely on peculiar (some would say gimmicky) design decisions to stand out from the pack — it’s a decidedly far cry from the downright weird style of the dual-screen Tablet P and the folded magazine aesthetic of the Tablet S.

Sony also provided an exceedingly brief glimpse at some of the services that will appear on its svelte tablet. There’s TV Sideview, a universal remote application that also provides guide information for local programming, and a handsome new gallery app allows users to view geotagged photos on a globe.

Devices like the Tablet Z and its smaller cousin the Xperia Z prompted some (including our own Matt Burns) to wonder if Sony had finally hit its mobile stride. That certainly seems to be the sentiment in Japan, at least for now — Suzuki also noted that the Xperia Z eventually became the top-selling smartphone in Japan (though he didn’t mention if the device managed to hold onto the top spot for any significant period of time). While 2012 wasn’t exactly one of Sony’s best years to date, Sony started to turn the tides at the end and that Suzuki seems sure the company’s mobile division will continue to pick up steam.

“I am confident that 2013 will be a breakthrough year for Sony in mobile,” Suzuki remarked.

Note: An earlier version of this post mistakenly referred to Sony Mobile CEO Kunimasa Suzuki as Kunihiro Suzuki — I’m a dope, mea culpa.

There’s glitter all over the carpet in the hallways at the Gaylord National Resort, a sprawling hotel that sits on the shores of the Potomac River just south of Washington, D.C. It’s definitely not from the thousands of energy geeks that are arriving at the hotel on Sunday night to kick off several days of discussions and meetings about next-generation energy technology for the ARPA-E Summit. It’s the aftermath from thousands of preteen girls, decked out in hotpants, ponytails and ribbons, that just spent two days cheering and dancing their way through a large cheer competition.

The two events seem about as different as when the Consumer Electronics Show used to coincide with Adultcon in Vegas. But the clean energy and energy efficiency industries could use some of the cheerleader’s glitter and cheer spirit right about now.

Following the close of a year which saw the politicization of clean energy technologies, the struggles of dozens of solar manufacturers and electric car companies, and a “cleantech cliff” that saw investments in cleantech startups drop by a third, the 2013 ARPA-E Summit will likely be a pretty sober affair.

As MIT Tech Review wrote recently, government energy R&D spending in 2013 is facing a fiscal cliff, and venture capitalists won’t likely flock back to pumping money into energy companies this year. Both of which mean funding for entrepreneurs, innovators and researchers that have bright ideas for things like next-generation batteries, low cost biofuels, or futuristic solar materials will be difficult to get this year. Or at least it’ll be a lot harder to find money for these technologies than it was a few years ago.

The silver lining of money being tight is that only the most promising technologies will get funding, and there will be less “dumb money,” so to speak. As a seatmate of mine on the flight over this morning put it: the state of clean financing is awful but it inevitably had to correct itself at some point.

But in the face of these more difficult times, another way to look at the ARPA-E program — which gives small grants to early stage projects and was modeled on the Defense Department’s DARPA program — is perhaps it could be the energy industry’s bit of glitter and cheer. It’s one of the few funding programs from the Department of Energy that has bipartisan support, will likely be able to maintain its current annual budget and is widely celebrated by entrepreneurs, politicians and academics alike.

The ARPA-E Summit itself draws some of the bigger names in technology and politics as speakers — this year New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg and Tesla CEO Elon Musk. In previous years Bill Clinton, Bill Gates and Arnold Schwarzenegger have given rousing speeches.

ARPA-E 2013 will be one of the last places that we’ll be able to hear from soon-to-be-leaving DOE Secretary Steven Chu. Chu has been one of the biggest influences on the U.S. Department of Energy over the last several decades.

I’m personally looking forward to moderating a discussion between IDEO’s David Blakely and Otherlab’s Saul Griffith about the importance of storytelling and narrative for early stage energy technologies (we’ll be live streaming it here for free on Monday at 4:30 PM EST). Particularly in difficult times, creating compelling narratives for next-gen clean energy technologies that could be decades from commercialization will be crucial.

As the energy geeks wake up on Monday morning ready to talk about kilowatts and sunshots with their peers, the cheerleaders will have mostly gone home. But perhaps, in a strange way, they don’t have so little in common after all.

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Qualcomm, the chip company that made its fortune in mobile connectivity had big visions beyond its CDMA and cellular radio heritage. It has entertained a focus on better displays, broadcast television and now, the internet of things. The chip firm has created an open source mesh networking platform called AllJoyn that connects nearby devices to each other, as opposed to connecting each and every device back to the Internet.

At the Mobile World Congress show in Barcelona, Spain this week, Qualcomm plans to announce four new implementations of AllJoyn that will allow for seamless notifications, audio streaming from and to any device, onboarding devices onto the network and AllJoyn platform and exporting the control interfaces for devices to other platforms on the network. So when you enter your home in an AllJoyn world your smartphone could send the song you’re listening to over to your home stereo no matter who makes the handset and who makes the stereo (or speakers). Same thing would happen if you wanted to ship the music to your car.

AllJoyn and Qualcomm’s vision for the internet of things

AllJoyn is tough to explain, in part because most of us aren’t that familiar with mesh networking. We’re far more used to having our radios send data up to the cloud and then have that data combine with other services while in a server off in a distant data center. Some companies are proposing we move that connectivity closer to home in some kind of smart gateway device ( in that case your data is sent to a box in your home and then combined with other data to perform a service).

Qualcomm however, is thinking a bit differently. “I don’t need to control my light bulb from Tahiti,” says Rod Chandhok, president of Qualcomm’s Innovation Center. “When you have 1,500 connected devices in your house I don’t think you want all of them connected to the public internet. “

Instead Qualcomm has built a software overlay that can work on any processor and hopefully on any operating system. Right now it does this via an application, but Chandhok hopes that consumer electronics makers will integrate it into the firmware on their many devices in the future. He says Qualcomm already has customers, but he declined to name them. For consumers, the end result is that you can install applications on your smartphone that will work with AllJoyn compatible devices and control them from your handset.

The platform is nice, but the implementation will drive adoption.

Qualcomm has been working on the AllJoyn software development kit for a few years, and has released the basics. But today’s news tries to help speed adoption by offering not just the SDK and specs for the platform, but the implementations. It’s not enough to give someone a fishing rod, sometimes you need to teach her how to cast the line. With these implementations, especially the audio, which Qualcomm developed in conjunction with doubleTwist, it hopes to show developers and consumers how powerful the platform can be.

Chandhok expects that we will see more consumer devices hit the market at the end of the year that feature AllJoyn compatibility. When I asked him how it compared with other efforts to connect devices in the home, such as SmartThings‘ hub or Mobiplug’s gateway, he said that in many ways those companies are concerned with creating a way to get everything on the internet and then to control it. Qualcomm may work with those companies, and they can certainly incorporate AllJoyn, but again, he’s not convinced that every item needs to be online.

And if these new implementations work out and the big name customers Chandhok doesn’t reference start releasing products, he may be right. Most people don’t care if everything is online– they just want an experience and service that’s easy and provides more functionality without adding inconvenience. The next big question will be around the partners Qualcomm find to help contribute to AllJoyn, develop applications that work with it and embed AllJoyn compliant hardware and software into their devices.

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BTI Systems, a company that has been selling networking gear to telcos for more than a decade, has scored $10 million in third round funding, bring its total capital raised since 2011 to $33 million. The Series C funding was led by Bain Capital Ventures and included existing investors BDC, Covington Capital and GrowthWorks.

The company has been providing wide area networking optimization products for telecommunications companies, optical gear and variety of other products in its 13-year history, but in conjunction with its funding new it has launched a software-defined networking product designed to connect multiple data centers. In much the same vein of Google connecting its data centers using OpenFlow, or firms like NTT or Calligo connect their data centers using Nicira’s software, BTI hopes to also help network providers make multiple data centers look and behave more like one.

BTI is offering a chassis-based product (it’s a big box) that customers put in their data centers network and connect via fiber to other BTI boxes in other data centers. BTI expects to announce customers using the product in the second quarter of 2013. The idea behind layering a software defined network between data centers is that it gives operators granular control on how they can route traffic between data centers based on customers and their service level agreements, but it can also lower costs associated with networking.

The promise BTI offers is that operators might not have to over provision to the extent they do today, because they can better manage their traffic and charge for bandwidth based on need. If packets don’t need to travel during peaks times, then the operator has the ability now to use pricing or service level agreements to move a customer’s traffic to less congested period. To be clear, these customers are not consumers, but corporations that are buying bandwidth.

The vision here is for a telco-grade SDN offering for service providers and big content companies that own their own networks, but who don’t have the engineering talent or the interesting in building their own boxes and code to do this. Despite the excitement around SDN inside the data center, using some type of software defined networking between data centers is actually gaining adherents just as quickly — if not more quickly.

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A few days ago, in wake of the lively war of words between Elon Musk’s Tesla & The New York Times,  my colleague Mathew Ingram pointed out that thanks to the Internet and the social web, everyone from companies to governments are acting like media entities and spreading their messages, bypassing the messengers – aka the media outlets. Given that, one might ask: who needs traditional media then?

I tried to help answer that question in my post from last year: Amplification and the changing role of media. The gist of that post was that “as more sources of news start to go direct by posting their thoughts to their blogs, Twitter and Facebook pages, a journalist’s role becomes more about deciding what to amplify and what to ignore.”

…the rise of the social web, that has changed. Blogs, Tumblr, Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and other such platforms have made it easy for news makers to go direct to their constituents. So what is the role of today’s media person? In addition to reporting news, I think picking things to amplify is also important. Back in the day, news people made a choice by deciding which stories to write. Today, we have to adopt a similar rigor about what we choose to share and amplify. In sharing (on Twitter or even re-blogging) we are sending the same message as doing an original news report.

The big media outlets still have one thing that they can leverage: attention. By leveraging that attention and highlighting things worth highlighting, they can continue to bring the news to their constituents and at the same time add veracity to it — and thereby add the kind of value that makes them worth keeping around.

Mozilla means serious business about Firefox OS, if today’s Mobile World Congress announcement is any indication. Timing couldn’t be more serious. Gartner says there is little room for a third smartphone platform; in fourth quarter, Android and iOS dominated with 90.1 percent share, based on actual sales. The race for third place is on, with BlackBerry and Windows Phone established, but weak, contenders.

Mozilla proposed Firefox OS nearly two years ago, when BlackBerry OS still had appreciable market share and smartphone growth was strong. But as the first Firefox OS devices come to market, much is changed. Mature markets already rapidly saturate, China is the largest for smartphones, feature phone share is expected to fall below 50 percent this year and Samsung has replaced Nokia as global handset leader. The best place for a newcomer, based on who will partner and where there is room to grow: Second-world and emerging markets — and that’s where Firefox OS is headed.

Alcatel One Touch, LG and ZTE are early hardware launch partners. Eighteen carriers are committed to offering Firefox OS smartphones: América Móvil, China Unicom, Deutsche Telekom, Etisalat, Hutchison Three Group, KDDI, KT, MegaFon, Qtel, SingTel, Smart, Sprint, Telecom Italia Group, Telefónica, Telenor, Telstra, TMN and VimpelCom.

América Móvil will bring Firefox OS phones to Mexico; Deutsche Telekom to Poland and other parts of Europe; Telefónica to Brazil, Colombia, Spain and Venezuela; and Telenor to Eastern Europe and other countries. Full list of launch destinations: Brazil, Colombia, Hungary, Mexico, Montenegro, Poland, Serbia, Spain and Venezuela. Most of the carriers expect rollouts to begin by mid-year and none are markets where smartphones yet have much traction.

This circumstance is crucial to future growth. Smartphones, unlike feature phones, bring platform commitment as users download and purchase apps and get add-ons specific to operating systems and devices. Firefox OS devices face heaviest headwinds in countries where smartphone adoption is greatest and supporting ecosystems with it.

In total, the world belongs to Android and iOS. Anshul Gupta, Gartner principal research analyst, says that “2013 will be the year of the rise of the third ecosystem”. Globally, with 3.5 percent and 3 percent sales market share, respectively, BlackBerry OS and Windows Phone are biggest contenders to be No. 3. But on the macro-level, particularly in countries where feature phones dominate, any platform conceptually can beat others — even those successful in markets like the United States or Western Europe.

From that perspective, Mozilla CEO Gary Kovacs’ boast isn’t so outlandish as Android or iPhone supporters might think: “With the support of our vibrant community and dedicated partners, our goal is to level the playing field and usher in an explosion of content and services that will meet the diverse needs of the next two billion people online”.

Critics might look at the situation differently — that Mozilla can’t find partners for major markets and gets the dregs. Even if true, none of the first distribution wave is a country with high smartphone adoption, which again to emphasize is pure opportunity for Mozilla and carriers.

Hardware partners are an interesting lot. None are top-tier. While ZTE and LG rank fourth and fifth for global handset sales — with 3.4 percent and 3.2 percent market share in Q4, according to Gartner — they declined year over year. Third place Apple has greater share than both combined. Sixth-ranked Huawei will join the three this year. Alcatel One Touch is the other Firefox OS partner.

Samsung would be the feather in Mozilla’s cap — but accounting for 42.5 percent of Android sales in Q4, the South Korean electronics giant has little incentive to add a fourth smartphone operating system. Nokia is committed to Windows Phone and Apple will never do anything but iOS. Devices from three of the top-six is a good start, considering Mozilla builds everything new and comes to market late.

The challenge now: Getting devices to market and supporting ecosystem in place. BlackBerry 10 is out, and Windows Phone sales grew 124.2 percent year over year during fourth quarter, according to Gartner, arguably from a small base. So the race for third place is on.

HP surprised more than a few people earlier tonight when it officially revealed the Slate 7, a $169 Android tablet that’s set to ship in the U.S. for $169 in April. It struck me as a safe move for HP, especially after it whiffed so profoundly with its ill-fated TouchPad. After all, people are buying plenty of Nexus 7s, so clearly there must be a market for a cheap, small tablet.

I got the chance to muck around with the Slate 7 at Pepcom earlier tonight though, and to be quite honest, I’m not convinced HP has a winner on its hands.

One of the first things you’ll notice about the Slate 7 is its elongated 16:9 display, and the thick black bezel that runs around it. It’s actually rather reminiscent of Samsung’s 7-inch Galaxy Tab 2.0, another underwhelming Android tab that banked on its price tag to sell. The screen itself (running at 1024 x 600) was decent enough — it was generally very bright, but the colors displayed seemed dull and lifeless.

The Slate 7 seems to have been designed to be as inoffensive as possible. That’s not completely a bad thing — the stainless chassis and the soft-touch plastic that the Slate’s rear is swathed in are rather nice — but there are precious few other design niceties to be found here. Those looking for a little splash of color may be interested to know that a red version will also be available. The Slate 7 is also apparently loaded up with Beats Audio support, a trait it shares with its notebook cousins, but I couldn’t get a feel for it amid all of the noise of Pepcom.

As far as performance goes, what else is there to say? It works just about as well as you would expect a $169 tablet to: not that great. Swiping between home screens could be a little jerky (if it worked at all; quick swipes didn’t always get the job done), and there was a bit of delay as I went to fire up new apps — though some non-final software probably has something to do with that. The Slate 7 has a dual-core 1.6GHz processor and 1GB of RAM to work with, which is usually enough to tackle stock, unfettered Android 4.1 without too many hiccups, but I’m willing to chalk all this jerkiness up to a pre-production lack of polish for now.

Click to view slideshow.

While we’re talking about performance, HP’s booth representatives didn’t have many specifics on the dual-core processor, but a quick look at the settings revealed an option called “Rockchip system updates,” proving nicely that HP sourced the processor from China’s illustrious Fuzhou Rockchips Electronics company. Now I couldn’t care less who the chip came from if it does the job admirably, but the internals here don’t do much to wow. When asked about how HP was able to produce such an inexpensive tablet, HP’s pitchman pointed to economies of scale — order enough parts and the end product shouldn’t cost too much — but opting to go with a SoC from a largely unknown Chinese company probably didn’t hurt either.

What almost certainly will hurt HP, though, is the crowded playing field it’s diving into. There’s the Nexus 7 to compete with of course, but don’t forget devices like the Kindle Fire HD and the Nook HD. Each of them brings higher resolution displays into the mix, as well as tight access with each of their respective media environments for only $30 more out of pocket. That’s not to say that HP won’t work to solidify the ties between its new tablet and the rest of the HP ecosystem — the Slate 7 comes with the ability to wireless print to compatible HP printers.

For better or worse (my money’s on the latter), HP just doesn’t seem concerned with trying to differentiate the Slate 7 from any other Android tablet out there. To its credit, HP isn’t trying to position the Slate 7 as anything other than what it is: a very cheap mass-market play. I’m not convinced that this thing is going to be able to pull away from the pack just by undercutting the competition on price, but I could be wrong — the Slate 7 may be the right tablet with the right price tag at the right time.

Google’s first computer isn’t about sales but status. Critics who lambast Chromebook Pixel as an over-priced web browser wrapped in pretty hardware miss the point. Badly. The laptop will sell, but not in mass-volume because it’s not meant to. Is Lamborghini about sales or style? I ask not seeing much commentary about how the Italian sports car is a failure because Ford sells millions more Explorers.

Chromebook Pixel is the luxury car of computers running Chrome OS and perpetually connected to the cloud. Google’s beauty is a status symbol for people willing to plunk down $1,299 or $1,449 and makes, along with newer Nexus devices, a bold brand statement: Google is a premium brand and the company a real innovator. For the people who love the brand and want to identify with it, like all those fanboys adoring Apple with their cash, Chromebook Pixel is an easy sell.

Consider Apple, which engages in a tried-and-true retail practice, with pricey, attractive Macs. Many people see tech gadgets as accessories — statements of their coolness, superiority — as much as useful products. They’re willing to pay more for good design, for style, like anyone choosing, say, sports car over minivan.

It’s good business. Clothing stores take a similar approach. There are teens who must have the newest wears from Aeropostale, American Eagle, Gap or Hollister at full price; they can’t wait for sales. They want to be cool. They pay for fashion.

Google joins Apple and Sony selling pricey, fashionable PCs. Chromebook Pixel is beautiful inside (that breathtaking display) and out (fine design and lightbar). The computer is a pricey fashion statement for those who can use it, and the cloud lifestyle sets them apart from others — quite literally high above them. For people who live the Google lifestyle and want the world to know, Chromebook Pixel is their proclamation.

Status is More Than Cool

But there are other measures of status. Chromebook Pixel promises to do for the Chrome OS platform what Nexus devices did for Android smartphones and tablets: Establish a reference design for OEM partners and provide developers base system to create apps for. The laptop is the status quo for future Chrome OS applications and hardware.

Google sees touch as integral to future computers running Chrome OS, for example. No other laptop offers touchscreen with super high-resolution display. Apple really should change its MacBook Pro product page, which claims: “The highest resolution ever. And the second highest”. Chromebook Pixel is second: 2560 by 1700 compared to MacBook Pro 13-inch’s 2560 by 1600 (The 15-inch MBP is still higher at 2880 by 1800). Google can claim highest-resolution touchscreen.

Google’s laptop is also status for the future. This is something I’ve come to really appreciate while reviewing the computer, and I had to change my thinking during the process by taking a different view of usage scenarios.

Earlier Chromebooks, particularly those released for holiday 2012, appealed for their value. The $199 Acer and $249 Samsung models are easy purchases, and, based on Google+ and other social network posts, many people use these Chromebooks as companion PCs — not their primary one. I’m among a smaller set of users making a Chrome OS device my full-time computer.

Chromebook Pixel is meant to be used as a primary computer. Design, processor, touchscreen and price say Pixel is the machine used everyday, all day long. To that end, Google’s premium portable must be able to replace something else.

This aspect, in conjunction with pricing, is primary source of short-sighted criticism, and there is lots of it around the InterWebs, much here in BetaNews comments. The major complaint: Chromebook Pixel can’t provide the same utility as, say, MacBook Pro or Windows notebook costing hundreds of dollars less. That’s reasonable thinking if Google’s laptop is meant to be used as primary, or only, PC, which it is.

But that rationale misses the point. You don’t get it! Open your eyes and think. True innovation is delivering something that you don’t know you need but once you get it realize that “Yeah, I could have used that all along”. Comparisons to the existing way are meaningless in this context. You have to think differently.

For What’s Next

Chromebook Pixel promises to change the computing paradigm — all those cheap Chrome OS models are but Trojan Horses. The primary cost is hardware, up front, that is used for years, while software is minimal investment, or free. That’s reverse the commodity model that exists right now, where, particularly for businesses, PC hardware investment is less (well, except for Macs), and software and cost maintaining it is so much more.

Chrome OS is a paradigm shift in key areas, both regarding the cloud: Where and how people use applications — app services, really — and how much less they cost. Chromebook Pixel is the status device for this future, and the critics just don’t get it.

This isn’t the first time, with respect to Google. I remember Android and Chrome critics in late 2008 and throughout most of 2009 poo-pooing the products. Yet look where they are now, particularly the mobile OS. The majority of smartphones and tablets shipped today have Android, according to IDC. In tablets, Google’s green robot stripped iPad’s early, massive market share lead in about two years. Half-decade ago, Android and Chrome were in many ways where Chrome OS is today.

Chromebook Pixel isn’t just for now but what’s to come. Look at Google’s marketing tagline: “For what’s next“. That’s a powerful statement about the product being just the beginning and insinuates something for anyone used to Chrome OS every-other-month updates: There will be ongoing improvements. The hardware foundation is solid, and Google can — and will — make Chromebook Pixel better over time.

Google’s marketing tagline is also a statement of purpose that signals dramatic changes ahead. People often ask, and I have been among them, why Google pursues a two-operating system strategy. Why continue with Chrome OS at all when Android is so successful? The answer is a question: Where do you consume Google services? Most certainly they’re more in the browser than apps. Chrome is the hub, the gateway, to these cloud services. Looked at that way, Pixel foreshadows a Chrome OS tablet, or laptop hybrid. Consider touch, which Chromebook Pixel shares in common with Android tablets. But the paradigm shift is much bigger than new hardware, but we work and play and the context surrounding them.

Chromebook Pixel is a status symbol — for people wanting the coolest thing, for future Chrome OS applications and devices and “for what’s next”. This seemingly pricey laptop is so much more than what it appears to be, which is one major reason why this post is the prologue to my forthcoming Chromebook Pixel review — presented in two parts.

Looking for something to listen to as you relax this weekend? Or to pass the time before the Oscars? Get caught up on all the tech news and analysis you need to know with our podcast recap!

In our weekly wrap-up, we talk about Sony’s PlayStation 4 event, Google’s Chromebook Pixel and Tesla’s earnings.

(download the weekly wrap up)

Stacey Higginbotham launched a new podcast series on “The Internet of Things,” an emerging trend that is going to be huge.

(download the Internet of Things show)

And from GigaOM Research, a look at the social business tools for enterprise

(download the GigaOM Research show)

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Late February means another Mobile World Congress, and the rush to make big, splashy product announcements before the show starts. Samsung jumped in early today, by announcing an 8-inch tablet with stylus — Galaxy Note 8.0. The slate is about the same size as Apple’s iPad, with comparable screen resolution, but features the S Pen and supporting software. Why just touch and type when you can draw, too?

Samsung’s slate joins the Galaxy Note II smartphone and 10-inch tablet, with stylus being the compelling feature that market leader Apple doesn’t offer on any iOS device. Like the recent update for its siblings, Galaxy Note 8.0 comes with a split-screen, multi-window function. The tablet runs Android 4.1.2 customized with TouchWiz UI.

Galaxy Note 8.0 is slightly larger than iPad mini — 210.8 X 135.9mm, 338g vs 200 x 134.7mm, 312g, respectviely. Apple’s tablet has 7.9 inch display, with 1024 x 768 resolution and 163 pixels per inch, compared to the Note 8.0’s 1280 x 800 and 189 ppi. Samsung plans to start selling the new Note in second quarter.

“Back in 2010 the launch of the first Samsung Galaxy Tab with 7 inch screen opened a new chapter in the mobile industry”, JK Shin, president IT & Mobile Communications Division, asserts. “The Galaxy Note 8.0 breaths fresh life into the category as it delivers the perfect fusion of portability and everyday productivity — the result is a pioneering, pocket-sized solution that enhances and enriches our everyday lives, whether at work or play”.

Apple and Samsung are the industry leaders in the tablet market. During fourth quarter, iPad shipment share fell to 43.6 percent from 51.7 percent annually and from 46.4 percent sequentially. Samsung’s share rose to 15.1 percent from 7.3 percent year over year.

Samsung has a long way to go to catch Apple, but the market is changing. During third quarter, Android tablet share pushed past 50 percent, snatching iPad’s early lead, according to IDC.

“I think the big picture is that for many years people insisted that there wasn’t a tablet market, just an iPad market”, Tom Mainelli, IDC research director for tablets, says. “The last few quarter have shown that there is indeed a market for tablets beyond the iPad, although that product continues to be quite dominant from a vendor market share perspective”.

Samsung’s renewed push into smaller slates is timely. According to NPD DisplaySearch, market demand shifts towards smaller, and lower-cost models. The firm forecasts that slates with 7-7.9-inch displays will account for 45 percent of shipments this year. By contrast, 9.7-inchers will fall to 17 percent — that’s the size of iPad. Apple introduced iPad mini in late October, in response to changing market conditions and consumer demand for small sizes.

Samsung (005930) is finally gaining some momentum in the tablet market after a slow start with the original Galaxy Tab, which launched in late 2010. The South Korean consumer electronics giant now has a number of slates available in the 7- and 10-inch ranges, but Apple’s (AAPL) 8-inch iPad mini opened new doors for mid-size tablets following its release this past November. Samsung was already putting a mid-range tablet together when the iPad mini debuted last year, and now the company is finally ready to take the wraps off its latest Note series device: The Galaxy Note 8.0.

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That Samsung was tinkering with a slightly smaller Galaxy Note tablet shouldn’t come as a surprise, but consider this the final word if you still weren’t a believer. Samsung has just officially revealed that the Galaxy Note 8.0 is indeed a real product, and that it’s planning on rolling the tab out across the globe starting in Q2 2013.

Though the company didn’t have anything firm to share when it came to release dates or pricing, it did have plenty to talk about in terms of hardware. The Note 8.0 tablet runs a TouchWiz’d version of Android 4.1.2 Jelly Bean, and sports a Exynos 4 Quad processor clocked at 1.6GHz, 2GB of RAM, and (you guessed it!) an 8-inch TFT LCD display running at 1280 x 800. Perhaps it’s not the most surprising spec sheet we’ll see here at MWC, but it’s certainly plenty of horsepower for a tablet this size and it shows (more on that later).

Sadly, there’s no word yet on what the Note 8.0 will cost, though Samsung representatives were quick to peg the device as being “affordable.” Naturally though, that will all depend on the configuration you’re looking at — Samsung will be selling Wi-Fi and 3G models with either 16 or 32GB of internal flash storage. The company also confirmed that an LTE-friendly version of the Note 8.0 was in the works, and that it would eventually grace the United States thanks to some crucial carrier (yet unspecified) partnerships.

TechCrunch got to take the Note 8.0 for a test drive earlier today, and it’s clear that Samsung has been doing some fine-tuning since the last time it release a Note tablet.

In terms of design though, the Note 8.0 doesn’t really bring anything new to the table. As Darrell pointed out when the first batch of leaked images started making the rounds, it resembles a blown-up Note 2 phablet with its portrait orientation, physical home button, and soft key placement more than it does a Note 10.1 tablet. It’s significantly slimmer than the last pint-sized tablet Samsung pushed onto the market too/, which makes holding it with one hand is slightly more comfortable even though it has a larger display.
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As you might expect, I was able to whip through homescreens, dive in and out of apps, and (most importantly) doodle to my hearts content with nary a hint of lag. I wasn’t able to run any benchmarks to prove my point conclusively, but the whole package felt snappier and more responsive than the Note 10.1 tablet. Part of that perceived performance boost can probably be attributed to Google’s Project Butter enhancements, but the snappy chipset and the fact that the pre-release software build was largely unfettered by cumbersome widgets and visual cruft didn’t hurt either.

Cameras built into tablets very rarely impress, and that’s exactly the case with the Note 8.0’s 5-megapixel rear camera and 1.3-megapixel front-facer. Colors tended to be a little lifeless and washed out overall, and images snapped with the front-facing camera were grainy and unsatisfying. They’ll certainly do in a pinch if you absolutely have to take a photo, but it’s very likely that your phone’s camera would outshine the Note 8.0 any day.

Speaking of software, the Note 8.0 is loaded up with the now-standard slew of S Pen-friendly apps and features, albeit with some nifty updates. Multi-window multi-tasking (my favorite feature on the Note 10.1) now lets users split screen their phone calls, and the S Note app has been updated with new templates and notably improved handwriting detection and recognition. It’s still not perfect, but the Note 8.0 was generally able to decipher my chicken-scratch with more accuracy than the last Note tablet.

With the Note 8.0, Samsung has finally gotten around to cleaning up one of the Note series’ most annoying quirks. Despite being devices that leaned heavily on the S Pen to differentiate them from their competition, owners of the original Note and Note 2 phablets couldn’t actually use the pen to trigger the capacitive touch buttons. Thankfully, that’s no longer the case — better late than never, I guess.

Like the Note 10.1 before it, the Note 8.0 also sports an IR blaster and a remote control/channel guide application courtesy of long-time partner Peel. It’s no secret that Samsung (like so many others these days) is looking to solidify itself as a force in the living room, and continuing this little trend is yet another way for Samsung to highlight the value of buying into its hardware ecosystem.

And, perhaps most curiously, the 3G-friendly version of the Note 8 allows users to place voice calls. To my utter surprise, it actually worked very well: the Note 8’s microphone was sensitive enough to deliver reasonably crisp, loud audio even in a room full of eager, chatty tablet tinkerers. I can’t imagine many people taking advantage of this little feature (if only because you’ll look more than a little silly if you do), but that won’t be an issue for everyone — Samsung has said that the voice call feature won’t feature to make it to every region where the Note 8.0 will be sold.

Perhaps I’ve been a Google Chromebook user for too long now because I’m nearly sold on the new Chromebook Pixel. I know it sounds crazy — who would pay $1,299 for a laptop that you can’t install software on — but anyone using a Chrome OS device today would be blown away by this machine. Simply put: It runs rings around all of the prior Chromebooks and is exceptionally better in every way.

Here’s a quick tour of the hardware including that 4.3 million pixel display. We have a 15-inch MacBook Pro Retina Display in the house and to my eyes, the screen of the Chromebook Pixel looks even better although that’s hard to translate in a video. The internal speakers are outstanding as well as I tried to demonstrate on camera. Unfortunately, my video camera is “smart” enough to level out the sound, so you’ll have to take my word for it.

Outside of the occasional podcast and video production, I have little doubt the Pixel could fulfill all of my mobile computing needs. And it would be a joy to use one of them as well thanks to the Intel Core i5 chip and 4 GB of memory; bench-marking Chrome shows a four- to five-fold performance boost over the Samsung Series 5 550 Chromebook I bought last year.

It’s even slightly faster than Chrome on my similarly spec’d MacBook Air. And unlike most other Chromebooks, no corners were cut: The Pixel’s design and build quality is top notch from the backlit keyboard to piano hinge that doubles as a heat sink.

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This week saw the introduction of HTC’s next flagship phone, named the HTC One just like its predecessor. The handset materials and design are a bit of a departure for HTC as the new phone will use an all aluminum enclosure and a pair of front-facing speakers. As a result, the audio experience ought to be a highlight for the One, but visually oriented readers will be happy with the display as well: HTC is packing in 468 pixels per inch on the 4.7-inch, 1080p display.

HTC’s One will include an LTE radio for fast mobile broadband and run on Google’s Android Jelly Bean software. The company is also including several of its own software features: BlinkFeed streams news, social networking updates and other information; Sense TV provides video content guides and uses an infrared sensor turning the One into a remote control; customized home screens are available, similar to prior versions of HTC’s sense software.

The flagship phone doesn’t yet have a price tag as that will come from carriers — likely next month — but will be available in both a 32- and 64 GB option. Other internal specs include a 1.7 GHz quad-core Snapdragon 600 chipset, 2 GB of memory, NFC radio and integrated 2300 mAh battery.

Speaking of Snapdragons, Qualcomm’s chip may power the Samsung Galaxy S4 phone. Samsung has yet to introduce the revised Galaxy but online benchmarks and other evidence point to the company opting for a Snapdragon over its own Exynos chip. Reports indicate the same Snapdragon 600 found in the HTC One will be inside the Galaxy S4, due to heat issues when testing the Samsung 8-core Exynos chip.

This wouldn’t be the first time Samsung chose a competitors chip to power its own smartphones however. The US version of the Galaxy S III also used a Snapdragon chip, mainly because at the time of launch, Samsung hadn’t yet integrated LTE support in the Exynos silicon. In some sense, Samsung is lucky that it has a secondary option for chipsets, else its flagship phone could face delays. We’ll get the story for sure within the next few weeks as Samsung is expected to hold a launch event for the new Galaxy smartphone on or around March 14.

We don’t, however, have to wait to see Ubuntu on a smartphone: This week, Canonical released instructions on how to install a preview of the alternative platform on Google’s Nexus line of tablets and phones. You’ll end up wiping out your Android system if you do this, but Canonical provided the handy links to Google’s own factory images for all Nexus devices, making it easy to reinstall Android.

I haven’t taken the Ubuntu plunge on my Galaxy Nexus yet, but expect to next week. From all accounts I’ve read so far, the Ubuntu interface is intuitive, but the software is still rough around the edges. There are still quite a few features and functions not ready yet although the Nexus phones will still be able to make calls and connect to both Wi-Fi and mobile broadband networks.

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How’s this for a helluva endorsement for Windows security over OS X? Today, Microsoft acknowledged falling prey to “similar security intrusion” as Apple and Facebook. They got nabbed by a Java exploit affecting Apple’s OS.

“We found a small number of computers, including some in our Mac business unit that, were infected by malicious software using techniques similar to those documented by other organizations”, says Microsoft security chief Matt Thomlinson.

Apple made similar admission on February 19 and Facebook a week ago. Apple issued an OS X fix removing Java, while Facebook disabled the tech. Microsoft disclosed no such action for its users. Party line: No data was taken.

Facebook offers the most details on what happened: “After analyzing the compromised website where the attack originated, we found it was using a ‘zero-day’ (previously unseen) exploit to bypass the Java sandbox (built-in protections) to install the malware. We immediately reported the exploit to Oracle, and they confirmed our findings and provided a patch on February 1, 2013, that addresses this vulnerability”.

My question: Who among the big companies discloses next? Surely these three aren’t the only ones running Macs and Java.

Microsoft’s full statement:

As reported by Facebook and Apple, Microsoft can confirm that we also recently experienced a similar security intrusion.

Consistent with our security response practices, we chose not to make a statement during the initial information gathering process. During our investigation, we found a small number of computers, including some in our Mac business unit, that were infected by malicious software using techniques similar to those documented by other organizations. We have no evidence of customer data being affected and our investigation is ongoing.

This type of cyberattack is no surprise to Microsoft and other companies that must grapple with determined and persistent adversaries (see our prior analysis of emerging threat trends). We continually re-evaluate our security posture and deploy additional people, processes, and technologies as necessary to help prevent future unauthorized access to our networks.

Matt Thomlinson
General Manager
Trustworthy Computing Security

Photo Credit: Jirsak/Shutterstock