Category: Mobile

GM’s march to dominate the Chinese new-car market continues with the New Sail five-door hatchback debuting at the Beijing auto show. If the car looks familiar, it’s because the New Sail hatch is what Europeans call the Chevrolet Spark. The tallish Spark/New Sail is also bound for sale in the U.S. as a 2012 model. GM says it will export the New Sail hatch to other emerging markets—think the Middle East and India.

Engine choices in the Chinese market are 1.2-liter and 1.4-liter four-cylinder engines. A five-speed manual is standard, and a new five-speed automated-manual transmission is optional. Chevrolet says the automated manual is cheaper than a traditional automatic and, like all such transmissions, helps improve vehicle fuel economy.

A sedan version of the New Sail already exists in China. While the five-door New Sail is bound for Chinese distribution, there are no plans for the sedan to come to the U.S. in exchange. And, based on our first drive of the Spark, we’re probably going to be OK with that.

Related posts:

1. 2012 Chevrolet Spark – Car News
2. 2011 Chevrolet Spark Confirmed for U.S. – Auto Shows
3. 2010 / 2012 Chevrolet Spark – Auto Shows

A new warranty program called Jaguar Platinum Coverage extends vehicle warranties to five years/50,000 miles, and offers free vehicle maintenance and 24/7 roadside assistance.  The coverage comes with any 2011 Jaguar sold in North America. All scheduled maintenance, including oil changes and filter replacements, is completely free during the warranty period. Platinum Coverage also covers some wear items like windshield wiper blades and brake discs, pads, and fluid.

Jaguar models sold from 2006 to 2010 had a four-year/50,000-mile warranty, with wear items covered for one year/12,500 miles.

BMW has had a similar program called Ultimate Service for a while, although the coverage period is four years/50,000 miles. Perhaps by offering free maintenance, Platinum Coverage will encourage Jaguar buyers to look past the brand’s reputation for somewhat uneven reliability.

Related posts:

1. Chrysler Ditches Lifetime Powertrain Warranty
2. 2011 Jaguar XJ – Spied
3. 2010 Jaguar XJ – Car News

Honda has announced that it will sell a limited run of the 2010 Type R Euro in Japan this fall. The Euro version is built in the U.K. and was, until last fall, only sold to European buyers. Japanese customers had to make do with a four-door sedan until their clamoring convinced Honda to send about 2000 copies of the hatch to Honda’s homeland. Honda says 90 percent of the imported vehicles have been sold since November, which is why they’re sending more for the 2010 model year.

The Type R employs a 2.0-liter inline-four that wails up to 8400 rpm and makes 221 hp at 8000 rpm and 159 lb-ft of torque at 6100 rpm. The car comes only with a six-speed manual transmission and wears stiffer springs and anti-roll bars than more pedestrian Civics. When we drove one back in 2007, we thought the Type R did a pretty good S2000 impression. Y’know, for tin-topped econobox.

Once again, we’re disappointed we get nothing like this in America, where such a car would slot nicely above the Civic Si. You offer the Type R in Europe, Japan, Australia, and South Africa—so how about you create one for us, Honda? After all, with the death of the S2000, there’s a vacancy in the sporty halo department.

Related posts:

1. Honda to Import European Two-Door Civic Type R to Japan
2. Subaru Launches Japan-Only WRX STI spec C
3. 2008 Saturn Astra XR: 3-door is Fun, Not Fast

Adobe still plans to release its Flash CS5 development tools in support of Apple’s iPhone, but in a blog post, Adobe’s product manager for Flash, Mike Chambers, writes: “[W]e are not currently planning any additional investments in that feature.” I read that as Adobe finally throwing in the towel, acknowledging that Apple doesn’t want, nor will allow, apps created with Adobe code on its mobile devices.

And although developers may feel otherwise, I believe Adobe is making the right decision. In fact, it probably should have made it sooner. Apple’s developer agreement actually pointed out such restrictions last November: “An Application may not itself install or launch other executable code by any means, including without limitation through the use of a plug-in architecture, calling other frameworks, other APIs or otherwise.” More recently, via the terms of its developer program license agreement, Apple reiterated the fact that it doesn’t want any proprietary code running on its mobile devices. Simply put, this issue isn’t a sleeping volcano that is only now exploding — it’s been prolonged by Adobe in the hopes that Apple would back down and give people a choice as to what they want to use on their handsets. But whether it likes it or not, Adobe has to hitch its ride to another wagon, just the latest fallout from the “open vs. closed” battle.

Rallying cries of “we want choice” are understandable, but ignore the fact that Apple has a choice, too. Just like any other company that manufactures goods, Apple gets to choose what — and what doesn’t — go into its products. Which means the consumer is left to decide what it wants most: the polished but controlled ecosystem of Apple that leverages web standards or a competing handset that offers those same standards plus Adobe’s upcoming Flash products.

The consumer may not have to look much farther than Google’s Android platform, which, by some measures, is growing faster than Apple’s iPhone. While Adobe is committed to delivering Flash 10.1 before the end of June, the company continues to mention Android in statements it makes related to that delivery date. (Note: I’ve asked Adobe which other platforms will see Flash 10.1 in the first half of the year, but have not received a response.) Google, meanwhile, is rushing to support its Open Handset Alliance partner with a post on the Adobe blog by none other than Andy Rubin, VP of engineering for Android, who writes:

“Partnerships have been at the very heart of Android, the first truly open and comprehensive mobile platform, since we first introduced it with the Open Handset Alliance. Through close relationships with carriers, device manufacturers, developers, and others, Google is working to enable an open ecosystem for the mobile world by creating a standard, open mobile software platform. Today we’re excited that, working with Adobe, we will be able to bring both AIR and Flash to Android.”

With such public backing from Google, Adobe’s situation doesn’t appear as tenuous as it did earlier this week, although this future isn’t written yet. Content providers that are hedging bets by offering video both in Flash and H.264 format will likely continue to do so — they can’t afford to have their content unplayable on certain devices, so they’ll play both sides of the fence. And developers that use Adobe’s toolset will still have a large audience for their apps on other platforms. The more immediate impact could be that Apple pulls the existing iPhone apps created with CS5 — Chambers says there are “100+ on the store today,” which is fewer than I expected.

When it comes to buying apps in the iTunes App Store, books are the most widely available, but they’re also the apps least likely to be purchased, according to Apptizr, an iPhone application recommendation service. It found that 22 percent of all available paid apps in the App Store are books, yet they account for just 3 percent of all app purchases. For developers, a better return on investment comes from Games, Entertainment and Productivity software, the top three categories of paid software in the App Store.

Apptizr’s aggregated data is a gold mine for current and would-be developers alike. For instance, its latest report shows that utilities are the most-browsed category — potential software buyers look for utilities 24 percent of the time. That compares to 15 percent searching the games category, which is the runner-up in terms of interest. And the folks browsing through all those books only do so 2 percent of the time; in other words, developers may be creating many book titles, but they’re simply not in demand.

Apptizr’s report (PDF) comes from the crowd-sourced user data it collects from more than 10 million users, which install the free Apptizr software and “seed” the service by sharing the types of applications they prefer. The Apptizr app then tracks software titles users install on their iPhones and suggests new ones based on an in-house algorithm. Think of it as a Pandora service for iPhone apps.

Related research from GigaOM Pro (sub req’d):

The App Developer’s Guide to Choosing a Mobile Platform

Chart and thumbnail image courtesy of Apptizr

In June 2003 at WWDC, Apple released the FireWire iSight webcam. Steve Jobs and Phil Schiller took the stage to show off the new iSight which everyone applauded and subsequently purchased. The $129 webcam allowed you to broadcast video to friends via iChat AV (in beta at the time) at 640×480 resolution. iChat AV received full 1.0 status that year with the release of Mac OS X Panther.

Soon, the iSight made its way into Apple’s entire line-up of notebooks and iMacs; even the 24” LED display Apple sells has a built-in webcam. Now, the only Apple computers that don’t have an iSight are the Mac Pro and Mac mini, for obvious reasons.

In Apple’s press release for the iMac G5, which was the first machine to have an iSight built-in, Steve Jobs was quoted, “Plus, the built-in iSight video camera delivers out-of-the-box video conferencing with friends and family, as well as hours of fun with our new Photo Booth application.”

So, what happened to the iSight? It certainly wasn’t Apple’s fault that iSight didn’t get the adoption that it needed. These days, iSight has gone the way of MySpace-using teens that upload Photo Booth snaps while at the Apple Store and Skype conversations between grandparents. iSight is accessible via Apple’s Development APIs so developing for it is a cinch. There may be hope for iSight and the long-forgotten “AV” features of iChat. With the rumors of a forward facing camera in Apple’s next generation iPhone, we may see Apple’s seven-year investment into tiny cameras and easy to use chat software make its way to those away from their desk, without ever having to open a notebook and find a Wi-Fi network. But first, let’s discuss my thoughts behind where iSight has failed so far.

Where iSight Has Failed

I think it’s a philosophical reason that the iSight use never picked up, and maybe Apple will prove us wrong by making video conversations as easy as grabbing our cell phone. Technically, Apple was able to fit a video camera into the ultra-thin MacBook Air but I think Apple knew that video conversations on the go just wasn’t going to be used by consumers if it wasn’t easy.

I’d argue that Apple did it best. Sure, this is an Apple-centric blog but after years of working in IT, I’ve used video solutions from Microsoft, Logitech and Cisco and each of these had their own quirks, device compatibility and performance issues. Any Mac sold has iChat AV built-in along with its camera. The video icon appears if someone has the same functionality, click and you see them within seconds. The problem is that it doesn’t travel. Apple’s notebooks don’t have built-in 3G and Wi-Fi isn’t always available. The iPad was my bet for truly making video conferencing mobile but that didn’t happen, at least in the first generation device. The holy grail for bringing video chat to everyone is to make it fit in your pocket, with the basic requirement being a data connection.

How it Could Work

Didn’t other handsets have video chatting software built-in? Sure. Nokia included these front facing cameras in many of its smartphones. The issue was compatibility where two handsets have the video camera and software and they frequently had to be on the same carrier, plus this was only being used in Europe and Asia. Yes, those are huge markets but it wasn’t “universal” across devices and carriers. From what I hear, the connections were too slow and the software too buggy to take over voice or texting as a preferred method of communicating with peers on the go. If the next iPhone gets this functionality, there are huge advantages that Apple has.

• iPhones are available globally
• Data speeds to mobile phones is much faster in 2010 compared to 2006
• iChat on Mac OS X

I could sit at home and video chat with someone on the go in Chicago, London or Tokyo. This is what it will take for video conferencing to truly take off and receive mass adoption.

Then Again…

Then again, there are cultural and behavioral observations that show video as a direct communications tool just doesn’t sync up with how we engage these days. In theory, video seems like a great way to go. Instead of a long email that takes 15 minutes to type, we’d rather phone a friend or video chat with them, but it just doesn’t happen. The video chat isn’t distributable to the team. The video chat can’t be searched or indexed and storage is still pricey if you’re doing a lot of video conversations. Not to mention, multitasking goes out the window; instead of plowing through 25 emails, I’m getting 25 iChat or Skype video calls every 10 minutes. It’s just not going to scale very well.

So what does the future hold for iSight? That’s a tough one. The video camera is cheap for Apple to include, but is it useful to use R&D resources to include iSight in future devices? Will iSight appear in more consumer Apple devices? Will Apple take more risks by pushing this on us only to realize that we still won’t video chat despite having instant access to the service on our iPhones, laptops and desktops? If the new iPhone does get iChat AV w/ a forward-facing camera, we’ll see if the population uses it as much as we would hope…or maybe video conferencing goes the way of ExpressCard slots on Apple notebooks only used by a small percentage of the user base. Would you use iChat more if your iPhone or iPod touch had it built-in?

Engadget has uncovered this little nugget of information, and while unconfirmed, it’s fairly juicy: Dell will launch a mobile phone called Thunder later this year that may come loaded with an integrated Hulu video application.

To date, Hulu executives have said they are interested in bringing the popular online streaming TV service to mobile and portable devices, but nothing has yet materialized from the NBC Universal (NYSE: GE) – Disney (NYSE: DIS) – News Corp (NYSE: NWS) joint venture. A collaboration with a Dell phone doesn’t make a whole lot of sense since the computer-maker’s efforts in mobile in the U.S. so far have been limited to one phone launch with AT&T (NYSE: T). However, the phone will be running the Google (NSDQ: GOOG) Android OS, hinting that it could be available on multiple devices from various phone manufacturers.

Other specifications leaked in the documents describe the phone as a status symbol made for the professional. The phone comes with a 4.1-inch screen, ties into Facebook and Twitter, and has Swype as a touchscreen keyboard replacement. It also supposedly includes Flash 10.1 for watching videos and a 8 megapixel camera.

If the Hulu app does indeed come on the Dell Thunder, that would not preclude it from launching on any other device. Fox Mobile Group, which is part of the News Corp. family, has announced a mobile video subscription application that will launch on a variety of handsets, including Android, BlackBerry and iPhone. Called Bitbop, there’s no indication so far that it would be connected to a Hulu mobile launch. The documents leaked to Engadget do not provide any additional details about Hulu, such as whether it will be free or paid. Fox’s Bitbop plans to charge $9.99 a month.

David Hughson wrote:

After spending some time last week at the launch of Mass Challenge, I wanted to share a few thoughts on recent experiences with the local innovation community, for two reasons: First, I hope they might spur further collaboration between UK Trade & Investment and the Boston tech community given some recent successes. And second, given our shared objectives in this space, I hope you might find them to be of interest as well.

As you may be aware, my principal job at UK Trade & Investment is to serve as the official consultant for New England-based technology and financial services companies who are looking to establish or expand their companies’ presence in the UK. I also spend time helping UK companies learn about business opportunities in the US.

A few weeks ago I helped organize and host a delegation of young, startup UK companies to Boston focused on mobile technologies. This delegation was a key component of Mass Mobile Month. Our team spent a few months preparing, and we enlisted the help of a number of local organizations like Mobile Monday Boston, Xconomy, the Ad Club, and MITX to arrange events and meetings. In the end it was a huge success. The UK companies saw significant business potential, and at least four companies have expressed direct interest in establishing a Boston office to build off of the opportunities that they identified.

This success was due in no small part to the openness of the innovation community in Boston. From top to bottom, from entrepreneur to investor, from industry organization to media outlet, Boston opened its arms to these UK companies and wanted to show off all that the local area had to offer.

Some of the highlights included an all access tour of the new MIT Media Lab space from Steve Whittaker (British Telecom’s University Liason). We had a lunch-and-learn with Rich Miner (Managing Partner, Google Ventures). Mobile Monday Boston and Kate Imbach (VP Marketing, Skyhook Wireless) organized the most amazing UK vs US company demo night with 300 people in attendance. And Brian Halligan (CEO, Hubspot) and his team gave us a great presentation on “inbound marketing,” a phrase which he coined.

The whole team at Xconomy helped us shape the content of the visit, arrange meetings, and host a successful and fun CEO dinner focused on the mobile sector. Tim Rowe and the Cambridge Innovation Center introduced the UK companies to the best startup space in town, and Dave Weber at MIT helped the UK companies post internship opportunities on the MIT jobs board.

UKTI and the companies who were a part of the delegation look forward to following up on the contacts made and the business which was discussed. We hope to continue the dialogue and to reciprocate by doing everything we can to support Boston-based companies with interest in the UK and Europe. London and other UK cities are ready to return the favor.

As local trade organizations and initiatives like Massachusetts It’s All Here look to capture and expand on all of the strengths of the local innovation and business community, they won’t have to try hard to find champions for this city. They just might be surprised that their biggest champions are in places like London, Newcastle, and Cambridge UK. The praises of Boston’s technology prowess and creativity will be sung by the fortunate companies who saw it in action. The MassChallenge startup competition, which has made itself open to companies from around the world, is another great example of the openness and forward thinking going on in Boston. You can expect to see a great contingent of UK startups applying for the competition.

Thanks to all who helped make that program what it was. If anyone is interested in a trip to the UK to drop in on a few of the UK’s leading centers of technology innovation, just let me know.

For more information on the delegation and the companies who attended, check out this link.

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UNDERWRITERS AND PARTNERS

First Engadget showed us a Windows Phone 7 beauty, the Dell Lightning, and now they’re showing off Dell’s Android offerings: Flash, Thunder, and Smoke. They’re all lookers in their own ways and full of appealing features. More »

»  Jumptap is rolling out a feature that lets consumers manage their own profiles for “a more personalized brand experience.” The feature, which will come mid-year, is in reaction to consumers wanting to be more selective about brands they want to interact with. Jumptap also partnered with Medialets and Crisp Wireless. Release.

»  Hipcricket has expanded its mobile ad network for brands and media companies to reach consumers via SMS and mobile display ads in applications and on the mobile Web. When originally launched in 2008, the network was focused on driving sales to Hispanics. Release.

»  Nexage has launched a metrics report that looks at mobile eCPMs during the month of March. It found that eight out of 11 ad networks fluctuates as low as 37 percent and as high as high as 89 percent of an unspecified maximum eCPM. Report.

The Dell Lightning slider is apparently not coming out until the end of the year, but it looks rather good—aesthetically and feature-wise. The Windows Phone 7 device has a 1GHz Snapdragon processor, a 4.1-inch OLED display, and more: More »

The Sony Ericsson Satio, announced last May, is can now be purchased at SonyStyle USA for $650. If you don’t remember, the Satio is a S60 5th edition Symbian OS cell phone with 12.1 megapixel camera (and xenon flash), and has full 3G and Wi-Fi support. The touchscreen on the phone is a 3.5 inch, 16:9 display that has 16.9 million colors, which is nothing short of wonderful. We also loved how the phone comes with a 8GB MicroSD card, and has thoughtful features such as FM radio, GPS, A2DP stereo Bluetooth, and a Webkit browser.

The Satio has been moderately successful since its debut and is available on several carriers around the world on a subsidized plan for quite a while now. Sadly, this is yet another highly advanced handset from SE that is arriving in the USA far after it was announced, and at a heavy price as its unlocked. It’s pretty crazy how the XPERIA X1, XPERIA X2, Aino and now the Satio have all sold here in the US without being available in a low cost, packaged plan from a major wireless carrier.

The Satio faired pretty well in our “Sony Ericsson “Satio” vs. Apple “iPhone 3G S” Specs Comparison” post.

In his unveiling of a five-year plan for Fiat and its myriad brands, group CEO Sergio Marchionne today revealed details of Ferrari’s future model lineup. It was somewhat of a surprise, as hearing concrete information about future Ferraris is as rare as getting all the details on, say, a new Apple product; it’s usually a loose tongue or detective work that spills the beans, not the CEO himself. But thanks to Marchionne, we now have concrete information on what will gallop out of the Scuderia over the next few years.

For 2011, we can expect a replacement for the 612 Scaglietti plus the 458 Italia Spider. We love the 458 Italia coupe, and the Spider is sure to be just as fabulous. A year later, in 2012, Ferrari will launch a new 599GTB and an all-new, Enzo supercar. A face-lifted California will arrive in 2013, as will a 458 Italia Scuderia. As to the latter, look to the 430 Scuderia for what to expect: a lighter, meaner take on the Ferrari’s volume mid-engine sports car.

Sibling brand Maserati will release a redesigned Quattroporte in the near future, according to Marchionne. It will also launch an all-new entry-level model priced just above $50,000. Let’s just hope the entry Maser doesn’t dip too deeply into the Chrysler parts bin to make its price target—remember the Chrysler TC by Maserati?

Related posts:

1. Ferrari Releases New Photos of the 458 Italia
2. A Guide to the New Ferrari 458 Italia’s Roots – Feature
3. 2010 Ferrari 458 Italia – Quick Spin

As we celebrate Mustang vs. Camaro Week and in anticipation of our upcoming comparison tests of the latest V-8 and V-6 versions, we dove into our archives and plucked out pictures of Mustangs and Camaros past. Then we zoomed in and cropped the photos to make identification a bit of a challenge. Here’s where the fun begins: Take a look at this picture and tell us what you see.

Guessing the model is the easy part—say either Mustang or Camaro and you’ve got a 50-percent chance of getting it right. Year and trim level are where it gets tough, so let’s see what you’ve got. If you get it exactly right—year, model, and trim—you might win a C/D T-shirt, but only if you read these rules first. Post your answers in the comments below. And remember: We can’t contact you to tell you you’ve won unless your commenting persona was registered with a legitimate e-mail address. So make sure yours was.

Related posts:

1. Tell Us What Camaro Or Mustang This Is And Win a T-Shirt!
2. 1968: Tunnel Port Ford Mustang vs. Chevrolet Camaro Z/28 – Archived Comparison
3. 2010 Lingenfelter Chevrolet Camaro SS vs. 2010 Roush Ford Mustang Stage 3 – Comparison Tests

You read that right, auto enthusiasts: the History Channel will produce the on-again-off-again American version of  Top Gear. The announcement came from TG’s blog and was confirmed on the History Channel’s Twitter feed. NBC had originally promised to produce the American Top Gear, but plans ultimately fell through.

In case you haven’t heard of it and are therefore dead, Top Gear is a (typically) highly entertaining show on Britain’s BBC that combines car reviews, outrageous stunts, and artsy camera work. Older episodes are rebroadcast in the U.S. by BBC America, but that’s apparently not enough for car nuts: the BBC claims TG is one of the most illegally downloaded TV shows in the world.

Production of the first of ten episodes of the American version reportedly starts today, and the show will air this fall. It will be hosted by racer Tanner Foust, comedian Adam Ferrara, and NASCAR analyst Rutledge Wood. We hope the U.S. version isn’t just a stale copy-and-paste of the BBC show, and that Foust, Ferrara, and Wood can capture the same sort of chemistry shared by UK hosts Jeremy Clarkson, Richard Hammond, and James May—without a similar rapport between the three Yanks, TG America could be a flop. As TG fans, we’d call such a failure one of the biggest bummers (cue British accent) in the woooorld.

No related posts.

Mobile-phone subscribers in the U.S. spent nearly 60 percent of their time on the phone accessing a social networking site, making the category the most visited by far when on the phone. In fact, time spent on social networks easily exceeds other high-profile sites such as online portals and typically well-integrated carrier sites.

According to Ground Truth, a measurement firm that receives data directly from the carriers and other sources, the average subscriber initiated 68.1 sessions, consisting of 310 pages viewed for a total time of 52 minutes and 12 seconds on social networks from the phone’s browser. The data does not include usage from mobile applications. During the first full week in April, top social networking brands, like MySpace (NYSE: NWS) and Facebook, did fairly well, but the true highlights were mobile-specific brands like MocoSpace, AirG and MBuzzy. In terms of the amount of time spent with an individual site, MySpace averaged 40 minutes; Facebook, 30 minutes, MocoSpace and AirG an hour and a half each, and MBuzzy for one hour and nine minutes.

Other categories didn’t even come close. After social networking, portals (presumably sites like Yahoo (NSDQ: YHOO) and Google), were only used 13.65 percent of the time; operator portals were even visited less frequently at 9 percent.

Ground Truth’s VP of Marketing Evan Neufeld said in a release: “Facebook and MySpace may be the most addictive pastimes on the PC, but sites like Mocospace and AirG command more attention on mobile phones…This data points to the fact that there is a whole universe of media properties advertisers need to consider that have to date been largely ignored. It also demonstrates that traditional media companies that are not focused on the Mobile Internet—both browser- and application-based usage—risk losing market share to leaner, more mobile focused companies.”

The big device news this week was Gizmodo’s post about the Apple (NSDQ: AAPL) engineer who lost a prototype for the next generation iPhone. Naturally, that was the lead topic kicking off paidContent parent ContentNext’s State of Gadget Media conference held at Edelman’s SoHo offices, as MediaMemo‘s Peter Kafka put the first question to Nick Denton, head of Gawker Media, publisher of Gizmodo. One of the controversial aspects of the news was Gawker’s use of “checkbook journalism” to get the story. As Jeff Bercovici pointed out, Gawker could face legal issues regarding the handling of possibly stolen goods. So Kafka asked Denton if there was anything he would have done differently. Denton, without missing a beat, answered no. Except for one thing.

The only thing Denton would have done differently was to wait to out the hapless engineer, Gray Powell, so soon after the initial story. “We could have waited a few days and milked the pageviews.”

Nevertheless, according to Denton, there have been a lot of pageviews and visits. On average, Gizmodo gets about 500,000 uniques a day; the iPhone story pushed it to 2 million.

Rafat Ali, publisher and editor of ContentNext, asked Gizmodo competitors how they would have handled the story. Scott Ard, editor-in-chief of CNET said that they would never pay for a story. “Our readers expect that of us and they care that we don’t pay for news,” he said, adding that he wouldn’t want CNET to incentivize criminality. MacRumor‘s Arnold Kim also said that he wouldn’t pay for news, but if he had the story about the lost iPhone, he certainly would have run it.

As a marketer, Kim Titus, public relations director for Samsung, has watched the iPhone story this week with amusement. But from a news story, he sympathizes with Apple, saying it hasn’t helped the product. “The news that has emanated from Gizmodo‘s story is all about how they got the news, nothing about the product itself,” Titus said. “It’s all journalists talking about journalists.” At that, Denton, seeming a bit weary of the topic himself, said with more than a dash of sarcasm, “Yes, that’s always interesting.”

Track up-to-the-minute coverage on State of Gadget Media on Twitter via the #gadgetmedia hashtag

Related

• Apple To Gizmodo: You’ve Had Your Fun, Hand Over The Phone

Gregory T. Huang wrote:

Zensi, an energy monitoring startup co-founded by University of Washington assistant professor Shwetak Patel, has been acquired by Belkin, the computer hardware and wireless company based in the Los Angeles area. Financial terms of the cash deal weren’t given. The news was reported earlier today by CNET.

Patel co-founded Zensi in 2008 while he was in graduate school at Georgia Tech in Atlanta, but he has continued to develop the technology at UW as a faculty member in computer science & engineering and electrical engineering. The company’s technology includes sensors that you plug into a wall outlet to measure the amount of electricity used by each appliance or device in a home. Zensi’s similar systems for water, gas, and ventilation—and software to run it all—could help people keep better track of their home energy and resource use, and ultimately reduce it.

Zensi was based in Atlanta and Boston, but the technology was licensed from UW and Georgia Tech. To hear Patel talk, this is just the beginning for using software help consumers better conserve energy. “This puts UW on the map as a premier place for energy work in the residential space,” says Patel. He adds that Zensi is one of the first examples of a residential energy monitoring company getting acquired for cash. The acquisition should speed up the process of making Zensi’s technology widely available to consumers. Zensi was looking to close a round of venture capital earlier this year, but decided to go the acquisition route when multiple bidders appeared, Patel says.

Indeed, the residential energy monitoring sector seems to be heating up all around, with big companies like Intel, Microsoft, Google, and even Apple unveiling new products in the past year. (Intel’s most recent offering looks a lot like Zensi’s, in fact.)

Patel’s fellow co-founders include Gregory Abowd from Georgia Tech, Matt Reynolds of Duke University, and CEO Kevin Ashton, who was based in Boston and has joined Belkin as general manager of the company’s new Conserve business unit. Belkin says to expect some new energy management products later this year.

As for Patel (who’s in his late 20s), now that he’s made his “big splash” in energy, he says he’s working in other areas, such as health-monitoring technologies. An example might be a mobile phone that can do X-rays in the field, he says. Will he work on another startup? “I imagine I will again,” he says.

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How much time do you think consumers spend engaging in social networking on their mobile phones? Would you believe nearly 60 percent? Ground Truth, a Seattle-based mobile measurement firm, said today that it’s found consumers use their phones for social networking activities a staggering 59.83 percent of the time.

And INQ’s Social Mobile, which it unveiled at February’s Mobile World Congress Show, is just one of numerous handsets aimed at riding the cresting wave of engagement through social networking features:

• Motorola’s Motoblur — Announced in September at our Mobilize 09 event, Motoblur is a customized interface for Motorola’s Android phones that shows real-time status updates from Facebook, Twitter and MySpace right on the home screen. Users can update their own status directly through any Motorola phone that supports Motoblur — such as the Cliq or Backflip — making the interface a two-way social portal.
• Microsoft Kin — Two Kin models were announced this month that are targeted squarely at the social networking teenager. The phones support simple drag-and-drop sharing of pictures, video, and location on Facebook, My Space, Twitter and Windows Live. And all content shared or created on the phones is available online in a unique timeline.
• Sony Ericsson Zylo and Spiro — Just announced two weeks ago, the Zylo and Spiro combine the music features of the Walkman brand with native Facebook and Twitter applications. Users can share not only their current status, but tell the world what tunes they’re enjoying in real time.
• Nokia C3, C6, and E5 — This trio of social networking handsets from Nokia were also introduced earlier this month. Each offers quick access to read or update status on Facebook or Twitter, but also tie into Nokia’s own Ovi service, which adds image sharing and instant messaging features.

While most modern phones allow for installing social networking applications or using the web to check and update one’s status, it may not be long before all phones offer native and direct ties to the big social networks. The open question then, is: Will the data networks be able to handle the demand created by all of us tweeting, sharing photos and using Facebook from our phones?

Related research on GigaOM Pro (sub req’d):

• As Twitter Develops, Developers Quiver in Fear
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