Author: Ray Walters

In an odd but slightly cool move, the Italian Kitchenware producer Alessi is releasing an Android powered home hub for the kitchen.  Designed by Stefano Giovannoni, the AlessiTab as it is called is a tablet (surprise, surprise) unit that will display video, pictures and other information from social media outlets.  The video below gives a demonstration of possible uses for the AlessiTab. Be warned, there is no sound for some reason in the video.

Click here to view the embedded video.

This seems like a neat toy, but not sure if it is something that a family must have in their home.  Now, if they decide to include some remote functionality for home theater or other things in a wired home, you might spark some interest. I do have to admit that having video demonstrations of how to execute some recipes would be very handy, but it is nothing that I cannot do on a laptop now. It does beg the question as to why this company is releasing this appliance, but whatever the reason, it is cool to see Android in faraway corners of industry!

Source: Phandroid

Engadget Mobile is reporting that AT&T is signed up to receive the Sony Ericsson Xperia X10 in week 30 of their fiscal year. This could mean that we could see the handset released in late July or early August. Additionally, this would bring AT&T to the Android table in a significant way, with the last of the “big 4” carriers supporting an Android flagship device.  Their earlier Android handset entries being somewhat disappointing.  The X10 could give the Android faithful on that carrier something to look forward to.

Now, week 30 of the fiscal year being in July means that there is a LOT of time between now and then, and the planned released could be changed to anything, especially given AT&T’s track record. Remember their other Sony Ericsson phone, the k850, whose release was canceled because it missed it’s “launch window.”

Even if this handset does launch during the rumored time frame it may be already dead in the water.  Many believe that it has missed it’s prime release time, and this can be indicated by the fact that when it does launched, it is rumored to be running Android 1.6 under the hood. Users simply have too many choices out there for Android handsets that have the latest flavor of the OS running on them for this unit to be appealing with what it is offering. Perhaps if AT&T can confirm the rumors that the X10 will get the 2.2 update shortly after release will users give this one a try.

It seems like AT&T continually misses the bus on the Android front, they have yet to offer a strong flagship handset running Android, and thus are late to the fact that Android is a real contender in the mobile industry. One thing that does not bode well for this handset is the rumor that the Samsung Galaxy S is coming to the “big 4” instead of one exclusive carrier.  If this is true, I honestly cannot see users jumping a this phone when the Galaxy may just be around the corner for them. Hands on reports from authors on our own sites say the Galaxy is one of the best handsets they have ever gotten to play with.

Stay tuned for more developments on this handset.

Google is reportedly teaming up with Sony and Intel to create a set top box based on the Android OS to bring home viewers rich web content via Android right on their TV screen.

Set top boxes are nothing new to media savvy homes, and are increasing in popularity–so to see Google branching into this realm does not surprise me. What does, however, is the fact that they are working with Sony, who arguably has a moderately successful media player out already, called the PS3. Whatever the motivation for Sony to work with Google, it is an exciting development both for the Android platform, and for media enthusiasts who have gone to an a la carte method of consuming their media.

There are no specs for the unit as of yet, but it is said to be powered by Intel’s Atom chip. Google is rumored to be hoping that app developers will take to developing for Google TV like they have for Android handsets. They want to deliver web content through lightweight apps similar to what is already deployed for the Android Mobile OS.

If Google can really pull this together and put it out there with a quality front end and at a reasonable price, this may be something worth looking at. As an HTPC user myself, my family uses Boxee as its front end. While it is in Beta stage and has some bugs, it has been one of the best experiences we have had with online media.  I mention this because Boxee has deployed several “apps” on their system, allowing you to reach different web sites and content with one click of a button. Google would be wise to check out what the plan Boxee uses to make their system work, and see if they can implement their front end the same way.

There is no one set top box out there that has yet dominated the market, perhaps the Google TV will finally be the one Box to rule them all.

Mark Deloura, formally of Sony

It would appear so as they have gobbled up ex SCEA executive Mark Deloura. Gizmodo is reporting that Google has hired Deloura to be their advocate for game developers.  Check out the whole article from Gizmodo here.

Deloura was the manager of developer relations at Sony, so this move is right up his alley and may signal that Google is getting ready to take games as a medium more seriously.  There are also rumors that Google is developing a set top box and a tablet with the Google Experience with Android on each.  Could hiring Deloura be a move to tighten up those platforms to compete with Apple TV and the iPad?  Time will tell of course.

No matter what his final area of focus will be revealed to be, Google made a great pickup here, especially if he helps them bring some sort of order and semblance to the Market.

It will be interesting to see what Google’s first hire in the gaming arena is going to mean for the Android platform.

Main Screen of App

Being a displaced Boston Red Sox fan, I am always looking for ways to either watch or listen to my hometown team while living elsewhere in the country. Not to sound Apple like, but being an Android G1 user, there is now an app for that in the form of MLB at Bat 2010.

For $14.99, baseball fans can download MLB’s app for their Android powered handset. The app provides a lot of statistical information, box scores and standings as well as baseball news, but the killer aspect of this application is the fact that users can listen to every single game played in the MLB this 2010 season via MLB’s Gameday Audio built into the app. This includes the playoffs and the World Series. Using a data connection, an At Bat user can be anywhere they have data connectivity or wifi access, and listen to their favorite baseball team live and in real time.

This is the first time this application will be appearing on Android handsets, it debuted last year on the iPhone and iPod Touch, and was one of the top selling applications.  It has already been selling very well on the Android Market, and is a sign that major developers may be finally making the move to develop for Android as well.

The app itself is a pretty small one, about .9 meg, which was nice to see a lightweight app with this much functionality.

Box Score info view

The user interface is pretty straight forward, when you launch the app you see all of the games that are on the schedule for the day in the MLB, you can skip ahead and back days to see past scores and future games.  Upon pressing a game box, you get an info screen about the stats of the game, along with tabs to select different information sets. You can get the pitch by pitch description, box score, field positions, play by play or video information.  Unlike it’s iPhone counterpart, you cannot watch live video on the Android version.

Menu Buttons

To listen to Gameday Audio, you use your Menu button, which brings up another screen with more options.  During the pre-season, some games do not have an audio feed, or if they do, you may get just one of the teams broadcasts. During the regular season, you will be given an choice to pick the home or away teams broadcast, which is pretty classy.

At Bat feels like a polished beta version. All the buttons and information feeds work pretty well, where the app skips a beat is the audio. It will lose the data stream pretty regularly, and you have to reconnect it manually to get the game going again. This problem however is not Android specific, as I own the app on the iPod Touch and that app has the exact same issue of dropping the stream forcing a manual reconnect.

Gameday Audio Player

Major League Baseball has always been ahead of the curve technology wise, so I think that they will be working to fix the issues that they are having system wide, and by the time the first pitch of the regular season is thrown out, the app should be humming along then.

Gameday Audio notification

At $14.99, At Bat seems a bit pricey, but when one thinks about the fact that you can listen to every single game played this year, it becomes a pretty good value if you like baseball.  For displaced fans, this is a dream come true, giving the ability to listen wherever and whenever you want.  If you are a baseball nut who lives in a different town your favorite team, pick this application up now.  If you live in the town your team plays in, perhaps waiting until all the bugs are worked out may be the best course of action. Overall, this is a great application that has a lot of realized potential as well as future possibility in it.  A must have for baseball fans!

Image Credit: Andrew de Quincey

In an article over at jkontherun.com, it seems that some enterprising Android enthusiasts have found that some Android powered devices have the ability to support USB keyboards built into their stock firmware.

As the author of the article points out, it is not as simple as plugging in that extra keyboard you have laying around, indeed it takes some splicing and some soldering to make it work. You also have to enable USB on the go host mode on the phone.

Credit for this discovery goes to Chris Paget, who lists the steps out on his blog. Chris used three different components to get a keyboard working on his Verizon Droid: a micro USB cable, a car charging cable and a USB extender cable. It seems Chris may be the McGuyver of the Android platform as he outlines how he spliced different things together to make the hack work.

For those of you who have been looking to use your Android handset with a keyboard, and posses the necessary savvy to splice cables together, make sure to check out Chris Paget’s blog. It is a very cool read on how he did it. You can also look here at Andrew De Quincey’s livejournal as  he was able to achieve USB Host mode on his HTC Hero, using a simliar method.

The exciting thing about this kind of development is the possibilities of using USB Host mode for may other applications, USB devices, webcams and other things that you can interact with remotely. Here’s to looking forward to what comes next!

It seems that the 3G issues that the Nexus One continues to have may be hardware related.  According to an article at TmoNews, Nexus One users are able to change their 3G signal levels just by how they are holding the unit!  This is happening despite an OTA update which was supposed to have helped fix the issue. Check out this video that shows how the Nexus One switches from 3G to EDGE when the user changes his hand position.

Click here to view the embedded video.

What is disheartening is that others users are able to replicate the signal state change in the same way as the video above. The 3G issue may not be software related as originally thought, but rather a significant hardware issue. Here’s to hoping that they can get this issue taken care of, Google doesn’t need more problems with the Nexus One.

South Korean handset manufacturer OCOSMOS has released a new MIP (Mobile Internet Phone, or Multimedia Internet Phone depending who you talk to), that has the ability to make calls over VoIP when connected to WiFi. Of course, it runs the Android OS, has a 3.7 inch AMOLED touchscreen and comes with a 5 megapixel camera.  Rounding out the specs are T-DMB mobile TV, WiFi, GPS, twin stereo speakers, and an Omos interface.  Oh yeah, it also has a 1Ghz CPU – just like that Nexus One!

Check out the video demo of the handset below. Warning, the cheese factor from the announcer is at full bore!

It seems that Mozilla has begun work in earnest on building Firefox for the Android platform.  Citing sources from the German Firefox community, Softpedia says that Mozilla is working with developers to make a build available that will at least display webpages in February, with a usable Alpha coming months down the road from that.

This is great news for those Android users looking for the Firefox experience on the their handsets. With Mozilla announcing in late 2009 that they were considering moving towards the Android OS, it appears they are going make good on that statement.

It is safe to say however that we will not see something usable for most likely another 6 months if there are any development delays (and there always are).  Still, the idea that there is a Firefox Browser build in the pipes coming our way is exciting and something to look forward to!

If you want to track the progress of the Android flavor of Firefox, and you can read German, check out the Firefox forums by clicking here.

Engadget Mobile has an article up taking a look at Chinavision’s “Robot” Android handset. Check out the article for the full specs and lowdown on the phone.  I’ll give you a hint before you go – It’s a 2.8″, dual-band snoozer.  As I stated in the title, this handset is nothing to get excited about in the least bit.

What I find interesting is the fact that we are starting to see Android penetrate deeply into the handset market, where even low end phones like this one are carrying Android. I really thought we would see this start to happen as Google pushed for Android to be on as many handsets as possible but I was not so sure after the release of the “superphone”.  However, this is an example of how a low end developer takes advantage of the free and open source Android.  In my opinion, this is a good thing, if only because that means Android is becoming the “go-to” OS for companies.

If you live outside of North America and do have an interest in this handset, it retails at $179.00.

While the tech-addict in me would love to own and play with an Android based netbook, the question must be asked:  Does an Android netbook make much sense?

Now before you go blasting me out of the water, (which I admit, may be deserved), take a look at the netbooks that are available right now for purchase.  You can get a pretty decent netbook with some great specs for about $300 or so that will serve you quite well.  If portability is what you seek, there are products running all flavors of OS to satisfy your need.

Would having an Android powered netbook be something that is actually useful, or something that would be a novelty?  Don’t get me wrong, it would be great to have a lot more real estate on a touch screen, and I would love to have more processing and memory power behind the OS; but I am struggling with the idea of using Android in it’s current form reliably on netbook hardware.  If I was to buy a netbook, it would need to be something that I could use without struggle, bugs or problems.  It would not need to be a beta unit, like most of the Android netbooks are right now.  I also would not be look for a netbook that was hooked into a carrier for mobile broadband, I simply do not have an application for that use.

Will Android mature to a point where it will be the preferable OS for mobile computing over the current choices?  I really hope so.  I would love to see a stable netbook flavor of Android that would work in conjunction with my handset, and all the Google Apps that I use daily.  Do I think it will happen?  Not anytime soon.  My feeling is that there will be a few netbook offerings out there that will be mildly successful, but it won’t be a must have item.

Does an Android netbook make much sense?  Regrettably, not at this moment.  I hate saying that, I really do.  However, if I am going to lay down $300, it needs to be very far from beta.

Let the flames begin.

For various reasons, I’ve had plenty of free time on my hands lately.  And since I’m an Android Guy, I was closely following the CES 2010 developments.  I was also reading all I could about the Nexus One, what kind of impact that it was going to have on the smartphone market, and the wireless industry as a whole.  With Google taking some unique and difficult directions, I wanted to see what the response was from the different tech reviewers, as well as the people who have been lucky (wealthy) enough to pick up an N1.

Like most of you, I read a vast array of different media outlets – from the biggies like USA Today and CNN, down to individual blogs written by people I admire. As I was reading, I was starting to notice a trend in a many of the articles.  What I was noticing was that in all the big media outlets, there was at least one, and in many cases two or three, articles which were trashing Google and the N1.

For example, USA Today had an article up talking about how the N1 is a failure from launch.  Take a look at one of the quotes in the article:

“This is an epic failure for Google,” says Rob Enderle, an independent analyst at the Enderle Group. “It tried to create an Apple-like experience, but it’s so far off from the Apple experience, it’s not even on the same planet.”

Notice the Apple comparison from Enderle that the author used. The writer goes on to talk about the different problems people are having from the support forums.  Spotty 3g (which was a localized problem I was told), different small bugs and the such.  I am used to seeing the N1 being compared to the iPhone, it is a natural comparison with all the hype and build up we created with the N1, but I was intrigued by the words the analyst used.  “It tried to create an Apple-like experience,” I found this intriguing because I do not think Google was trying to do that at all, and has not done that with Android since launch. I believe that they have tried to go into a different direction, albeit there are certainly similarities in the two operating systems.

ABC News released an article before the launch of the N1 that was geared totally towards the idea that Google is no Apple, and the N1 was nothing compared to iPhone, again something that I am used to reading, but there was a quote that stuck out to me:

“Android was envisioned as a major breakthrough in cellphones because it offered an ‘open’ operating system – i.e., one that other companies could use and design applications for. At the time, this strategy was compared to that of Microsoft Windows, which broke the market hegemony of Apple’s decidedly non-open OS in the mid-1980s and within a decade, turned Apple into a niche company. This time around, the new Android phones were supposed to break the hegemony of the Apple iPhone. So far, it hasn’t quite worked out that way with Android.”

This piece was released before the N1 was launched, and already the author was putting it down, saying that Android was put into play to break the iPhone’s dominance of the smartphone market.

When you read the article, the author goes on to talk about how much Apple has learned over the years how they are innovators, and are always one step ahead of their “opponents.”

I have read other articles like the two I mentioned above, extolling the virtue of Apple’s creativity and awesomeness, while downplaying Google and where they are heading with Android. The question that comes after reading piece after piece like this is, where is this coming from? This is GOOGLE, the makers of some pretty amazing applications and tools that people across the globe use.  Not to mention for the most part… free of charge.  Gmail, Google Voice, Google Wave, Google Apps, Google Docs, Google Maps, I could go on and on.  All of those tools I use daily, along with millions of others.  Google has done it’s fair share of innovating and changing the face of how we do business in the world, so why with Android are we getting all these ideas that Google is totally screwing the pooch?

The title of the post is a little tongue in cheek, but the idea is still there in my mind.  If I was Apple, and saw a serious threat to my business from a company that has a good amount of money to throw at a platform that is directly competing with my main source of revenue, what would I do?  There are many things, and discounting that platform in the media would be one of them.  I was talking with one of the authors here at Android Guys, wondering how long it is going to be until we start to see commercials with “I’m a Mac and I’m an Android” like the PC Mac commercials we see now.  I don’t think that is very far down the road.

Apple has plenty of influence in the media, a few quotes placed here and there off the record about Android would be fodder enough for writers to start casting negativity on Android. With all of the comparisons and the fawning attention Apple is getting from the media in an almost conciliatory way, it makes one wonder about where the ideas are coming from.

So is Apple behind all the negative press that Google and N1 has received?  I’m not sure, but it something to chew on.  What do my fellow conspiracy theorists think?

And of course, I would be talking about the Nexus One, the most glorious Android phone to date.  About four months ago, I wrote an article called, “Don’t Hold Your Breath…”, talking about the fact that I really did not see Google trying to get into the phone market through manufacturing their own handset.  Boy was I wrong, and I am so glad that I was.

With the release of the Nexus One, I find myself happily shocked that it is actually here and ready to go.  My theory of Google just trying to get more people tied into their search engine, and as a result generate more revenue,  looks like a short assessment on Google’s ambitions.   The Nexus One is a direct assault on the iPhone and Apple, it is an interesting and exciting move, and opens up much speculation about how Google wants to change the playing field of the mobile industry.

The question must be asked:  What does Google gain by creating and selling the new Superphone?  Here are my thoughts:

1. Revenue.  This has to be #1.  Money.  Google is a business, as of last October, they had an estimated market value of 153 billion.  People are going to flock to an unlocked phone that can be used on any carrier without rooting.  This phone is going to sell like hotcakes.
2. Launching a flagship handset will bring legitimacy to the platform.   Android has been growing and has become a major player in the smartphone market. However, the array of handsets and their ability to run the platform has been all over the map.  By launching a handset that has been spec’ed by Google itself, they can control the user experience, creating a tighter user environment and provide their customers a phone that will run everything without problems.
3. Encourage developers that Google means business with Android, thereby helping to mature the market. One of the major complaints right now is that the Android market is a bit of a mess, and is a revenue sink for developers.  People just are not making money yet selling in the Market.  By proving to devs that Google is serious about providing hardware that can do some awesome things, they are reassuring potential software creators to jump into the Android pond.
4. They reward T-Mobile for their loyalty. I find it really classy that Google did not abandon T-Mobile with the Nexus One.  T-Mobile took a big chance with the G1, and to open up some subsidy rights to them to sell the phone is top notch.  It also in turn rewards the G1 adopters, and gives them opportunity to get their hands on the phone for a cheaper price, if they meet the requirements.
5. Despite the high unsubsidized price, releasing a phone that can be used on different carriers is a step forward for unlocked handsets to be the norm. This one I know is a bit of a reach, since you can buy unlocked handsets for a premium, but with Google’s clout behind it, I wonder if we will start to see this more and more.  I believe that this certainly threatens the trend of exclusivity of different phone models.

I have little over a year left before I can jump on the Nexus One wagon, and I am counting the days.  Those of you who can grab it now, congrats; I am looking forward to seeing where the Nexus One goes.  In the meantime, I am getting ready to eat my word sandwich.