Category: News

CloudFlare’s web security service went down for about an hour starting at 2:47 PDT Sunday morning, taking its customers down with it. The service was back up at 3:49 PDT, according to a post-mortem. CloudFlare attributed the outage to a system-wide failure of its Juniper edge routers that started after the company tried to prevent a DDoS attack on one of its customers.

Affected sites include Wikileaks, 4chan and others according to this Techcrunch report.

One reason CloudFlare opts for Juniper is the latter’s support for the Flowspec protocol which enables customers to propagate router rules across a large number of routers fast, according to the company post. This comes in handy because CloudFlare is always updating rules to combat ever-changing attacks and to re-route traffic as needed to optimize performance.

This morning CloudFlare detected a DDoS attack on one of its customers and its attack profiler ascertained the offending packets were  between 99,971 and 99,985 bytes.

That attack profile was sent out to Flowspec to stop the spread of attacks. From the post mortem:

“Flowspec accepted the rule and relayed it to our edge network. What should have happened is that no packet should have matched that rule because no packet was actually that large. What happened instead is that the routers encountered the rule and then proceeded to consume all their RAM until they crashed.”

Service was restored after about an hour, although CloudFlare said it continues to examine the issue and has contacted Juniper to see if there is a known bug involved or the problem is unique to CloudFlare’s implementation.

Cedexis’ Radar view of CloudFlare outage.

Given that the number of DDoS attacks is on the rise, web sites had better gird themselves and hope their security vendors are taking proactive steps to keep ahead of the problem.

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• The promise of SDNs in the enterprise
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We understand, you’re busy. So you may not have had the chance to check out our podcasts this week. That’s why we’ve gathered them together in one handy place for you to spend your Sunday listening and learning about all the technology trends you need to know about.

In our weekly news wrap up we talked about Yahoo’s work from home ban, as well as our Internet of things meetup in San Francisco and the no news out of Mobile World Congress.

(Download the weekly wrap up)

Stacey Higginbotham went nutty for the Almond+ touchscreen router in our Internet of things podcast.

(Download the Internet of things podcast)

And Kevin Tofel is super excited about the Chromebook Pixel, and answers your questions about the device.

Download Kevin’s call-in show)

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• The state of cross-platform media measurement
• Social third-quarter 2012: analysis and outlook
• How social discovery is transforming entertainment

It’s been a big week for big data and for GigaOM. We hosted our first internet of things meetup in San Francisco on Tuesday, with a packed house of 250 listening to our 5 speakers. Our next IoT meet up is slated for Boulder on March 13; register here to join us. We also checked out the Strata conference in Santa Clara, as we get prepared for our own Structure:Data show in New York City on March 20-21. If you haven’t secured your tickets yet, click here to register now – there are a limited number of spots remaining. Meanwhile, over on GigaOM Pro, our analysts took a deeper look at the potential motives behind Marissa Meyer’s new anti-WFH policies at Yahoo, as well as deep dive into the wearable devices market.

Note: GigaOM Pro is a subscription-based research service offering in-depth, timely analysis of developing trends and technologies. Visit pro.gigaom.com to learn more about it.

Cleantech: The growth and promise of the LED market
Ucilia Wang

Analyst Ucilia Wang takes a look at the LED industry, which is slowly making inroads into the commercial markets. LED is moving away from being a mere novelty or purely functional form of illumination and gaining popularity for residential and retail use. Wang provides a technical overview of LED design and engineering, potential additional use cases and applications for the technology, and which startups and major companies to watch as LEDs continue to gain a foothold in the mainstream.

Connected Consumer: The wearable-computing market: a global analysis
Jody Ranck

Last summer, we published analyst Jody Ranck’s analysis of wearable devices, and it’s back at the top of our most popular research content. While Google Glass is often cited as the seminal wearable example, Ranck also looks at many of the devices available to consumers today. At present, it’s a market largely dominated by the quantified-self movement, anchored by fitness products such as the Nike Fuelband and the Fitbit (see disclosure). Although the mobile and health sectors will see the biggest impact over the next 5 years, Ranck looks at current and emerging wearable technologies that will resonate across the enterprise, disability technology, fashion, gaming/entertainment, and augmented reality sectors.

Social: What Marissa Mayer’s ‘no remote work’ dictate means
Stowe Boyd

Analyst Stowe Boyd takes a theiry-based approach as he weighs in on Yahoo’s crackdown on WFH culture. Drawing on Edgar Schein’s  principles of organizational structure, Boyd looks at what impact Meyers’ latest policy will have upon Yahoo’s corporate culture. While the mandate emphasizes the importance of in-person collaboration and communication, Boyd worries that Yahoo is sacrificing innovation in favor of corporate micromanagement.

Disclosure: Fitbit is backed by True Ventures, a venture capital firm that is an investor in the parent company of this blog, Giga Omni Media. Om Malik, founder of Giga Omni Media, is also a venture partner at True.

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• This Week in Connected Consumer: 3 Ways Google E-books Can Succeed
• Analyzing the wearable computing market
• GigaOM Research highs and lows from CES 2013

When it comes to off-road rallies and events there is no doubt that Europe has the U.S. beat hands down. That doesn’t mean however that U.S. teams can’t participate. The following video covers Team Magpul as they tackle the infamous Breslau Rallye off-road race that starts in Germany and ends in Poland. This is a race that no matter how well prepared you are, can and will bite you in the ass at the worst possible moment.

You’ve been warned.

Source: BangShift.com

This week, our contributors to the Industry Perspectives channel shared thoughts on cloud-ready apps, data warehouse strategy, brokering IT services internally and today’s outlook on the vendor scene. This channel at DCK is growing and providing industry professionals with the opportunity to share their insight and expertise. For your weekend reading, here’s a recap of this week’s columns:

Unleash Your Applications with Cloud-aware Application Delivery – The evolution of cloud architectures and their ability to deliver a greater level of efficiency and flexibility has been a hot topic recently. So why put your apps in the cloud? Kavitha Mariappan of Riverbed outlines the benefits of putting your apps in the cloud.

Creating An Effective Data Warehouse Strategy – Contrary to what some companies may still believe, effective data warehouse solutions do not have to be costly. Nor do they have to be complex or limited to a single size and scope, writes Alan McMahon of Dell.

Brokering IT Services Internally: Building the Order ProcessTypically, when the busy internal consumer seeks access to an IT resource, he or she is faced with a daunting obstacle course of approvals. Dick Benton of Glasshouse covers how the advent of cloud has changed the order and provisioning process.

A Great Time to be in the Data Center Industry – A decade or so ago, however, data center specialists were scarce. Today, there’s many companies available, writes Tom Roberts of AFCOM. Select a build and/or design partner that matches your company’s culture and style.

Industry Perspectives is a content channel at Data Center Knowledge highlighting thought leadership in the data center arena. See our guidelines and submission process for information on participating. View previously published Industry Perspectives in our Knowledge Library.

As March opens, college basketball fans are enjoying the final days of the regular season with teams jockeying for position in post-season tournaments. Next up will be conference tournaments and then the annual event known as “March Madness” – the NCAA Tournament. To help basketball fans keep up with all the action, ESPN has updated their Bracket Bound app for the 2013 season.

The app includes some features that users may find useful now, like the ability to setup favorite teams and games to keep track of the action. Other typical sports app features include access to news, conference standings, game results, and video clips of analysis and news. ESPN indicates the app will provide quick access to their WatchESPN app to watch live or recorded events as well as access to Twitter discussions the user may find interesting.

As far as the 75th NCAA Tournament goes, users can access the latest projections of who will make the field and where. ESPN indicates users will be able to access the ESPN Tournament Challenge using the app, including the ability to complete up to ten brackets. That function is not present in the app for now, but should be available via an update once brackets are announced.

You can check out some screenshots below. If you are interested in getting ESPN Bracket Bound 2013, use one of the download links below.

Google Play Download Link

Come comment on this article: Update preps ESPN Bracket Bound app for 2013 tourney

If you’re a Verizon Galaxy Nexus owner, then it looks like you’ve got some sort of update on the way… which we were already aware of and expecting. Reports are coming in that the nation’s wireless carrier is currently testing a mysterious JDQ39 build of Android 4.2.2 which seems to feature some new radios, but unfortunately seems to feature an old bootloader and old kernel version.

PWhy Verizon isn’t updating the kernel and bootloader beats us— but maybe it’s just part of its extensive testing before rolling out to the masses. Nevertheless we’ll certainly be keeping our eyes and ears open to what Verizon has up in its sleeves for you G-Nex users out there.

source: XDA Forums
via: Android Central

Come comment on this article: Is Verizon prepping an Android 4.2.2 update for Galaxy Nexus users? Sure seems to be the case

What would the internet be without hackers hacking things? Not a day goes by where some hacker somewhere is attempting to access secure or private information. Well it looks like the Evernote Operation’s and Security team discovered they they were at the receiving end of suspicious computer activities. Although personal content nor payment information looks to be affected the investigation does show that Evernote user information (usernames, email addresses associated with Evernote accounts and encrypted passwords) were obtained. While this is worrisome in itself, files containing said user information is encrypted. However rather than rely on just that the Evernote team is playing it safe and requiring that you head on over to evernote.com to reset your password. In the process they also would like to remind everyone the importance of keeping your password secure:

“There are also several important steps that you can take to ensure that your data on any site, including Evernote, is secure:

• Avoid using simple passwords based on dictionary words
• Never use the same password on multiple sites or services
• Never click on ‘reset password’ requests in emails — instead go directly to the service.”

So if you’re a Evernote user then head on over to their web site to change your password. Hit the source link below to read the full post. It’s great to see a company be proactive about their security.  I don’t know about you, but I’m going to go reset my password right now.

Source: Evernote

Come comment on this article: Hackers Access Evernote Secure Areas. Evernote Team Issues Service Wide Password Reset

Back when I was a kid Toy Story was my favorite movie. Mostly because it appealed to something I then often thought about; my toys coming to life when no one was around. To this day it’s proved a timeless classic with millions of toys, two sequels and multiple videogames. Just the other day even, Disney/PIXAR released Toy Story: Smash It! into the Play Store for your gaming pleasure. They’re not stopping there as they bring an interactive live wallpaper into the mix. Toy Story: Andy’s Room promises to visually brighten your day while also entertaining you with activities involving your favorite Toy Story characters. As if being entertaining weren’t enough Disney/Pixar also brings the following with this wallpaper:

• Encounter popular Toy Story characters: Unlock and interact with 5 characters from Toy Story including Woody, Buzz, Rex, Hamm, and the Aliens!
• Collect points to unlock new characters with fun mini games: Catch falling army men, and hit the bullseye on the dart board to earn valuable points!
• Hang out in Andy’s room from day till night: Play from sunrise to sunset, and watch the room change throughout the day according to your local time!
• Customize your own cork board: Write fun messages and reminders on the cork board in Andy’s Room!

If you’re looking for a Toy Story nostalgia fix hit the break for a link to the Play Store download. Enjoy!

(more…)

Google is said to be close to launching its Play Store Gift Cards in the UK very soon.  We believe this to be the case since Google updated their Gift cards & Google Play balance help files to now include the UK.  Gift cards will reportedly be available for purchase in £10, £25, and £50 increments.

UK readers may recall a similar tease when “redeem pages” popped up in the  UK’s online and device-based stores in Q4 of 2012.  Again, we can only deduct that a UK launch is imminent, but we have made the same assumptions in the past with negative results.  So what makes this different?  This time around though, it seems as though Play Store Gift Cards could be a reality in the UK…soon.

Source:  Google Play
Via: Android Police

Come comment on this article: Play Store Gift Cards to Launch in the UK….Soon?

In 2011, IBM achieved a quantum leap in artificial intelligence technology when its Watson computer program trounced human champions Ken Jennings and Brad Rutter in a three-day Jeopardy! tourney, taking home the million-dollar prize by outscoring the second place competitor by a three-to-one margin.

Since then, Watson has shown its computing prowess in the world of medicine and in other business settings. However, as was recently announced, IBM decided Watson could use a college education and so will join here us at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. With its help, we hope to further advance artificial intelligence in a number of key areas.

The Watson program is already a breakthrough technology in AI. For many years it had been largely assumed that for a computer to go beyond search and really be able to perform complex human language tasks it needed to do one of two things: either it would “understand” the texts using some kind of deep “knowledge representation,” or it would have a complex statistical model based on millions of texts.

Watson used very little of either of these. Rather, it uses a lot of memory and clever ways of pulling texts from that memory. Thus, Watson demonstrated what some in AI had conjectured, but to date been unable to prove: that intelligence is tied to an ability to appropriately find relevant information in a very large memory. (Watson also used a lot of specialized techniques designed for the peculiarities of the Jeopardy! game, such as producing questions from answers, but from a purely academic viewpoint that’s less important.)

Right now, to take Watson into a new domain — for example, to be able to answer questions about health and medicine — Watson works by reading texts. First, it needs a lot of information to go into its memory, which is generally provided by giving it a million or more documents to process from any particular area or discipline. Second, it needs to have information about the specialized terms used – for example, to be told that the word “attack” in “heart attack” is a noun and not a verb. Technical terms, such as, say, “myocardial infarction” also need to be identified. Finally, to hone its ability in the new area it needs a combination of questions and answers to train from.

But on the Web, we can find much more than text.  Watson will be more powerful if it can also take advantage of other resources. One of our first goals is to explore how Watson can be used in the big data context.  As an example, in the research group I run, we have collected information about more than one million datasets that have been released by governments around the world. We’re going to see what it takes to get Watson to answer questions such as “What datasets are available that talk about crop failures in the Horn of Africa?” Or, at a more local level, “What government agency can help me find a job in New York?”

We’re also looking at how Watson can use other kinds of information; ideas our students have suggested include:

• Technical domains such as chemistry and nuclear engineering, where specialized diagrams and formulas are needed.
• “Commonsense” domains, such as what is happening around our college, where Watson would need to interact with Twitter, Facebook, and other kinds of social media.
• “Artificial worlds,” such as role-playing games, where Watson would need to differentiate between objects that are real and others that are imaginary.

On a more theoretical level, we want to understand what Watson can teach us about artificial intelligence in general.  We will explore how the memory-based techniques of Watson can be “embedded” into more complex reasoning systems.  As humans, our memories are used as a component of much more complex cognition than is needed for playing Jeopardy (a tough task in its own right, or course.) Memory helps us to decide which of various approaches may be best when faced with a problem, by providing analogies between the current situation and ones we’ve seen in the past. We also are able to pull up separate memories in different contexts, based on situational need.

By exploring how Watson’s memory functions as part of a more complex problem solver, we may learn more about how our own minds work. To this end, my colleague Selmer Bringsjord, head of the Cognitive Science Department, and his students, will explore how adding a reasoning component to Watson’s memory-based question-answering could let it do more powerful things. Can Watson be made to solve word problems it has never seen before? Can we enable it to justify the answers it gives? Could it be made into a conversationalist rather than just a question-answerer?

As we understand Watson better, our students will also be exploring how to deepen its capabilities by programming new components.  They will learn how this new generation of “cognitive computing,” as IBM Senior Vice President and Director of Research John E. Kelly has called it, really works. They will come to understand the architectures, software, and hardware that power the approach, and they will program new modules to give Watson new abilities.

And finally, of course, there’s the blue sky nature of what Watson may allow. Given such a potent new tool, we suspect this list of projects still just scratch the surface of what our students will come up with. As one said, he is “eager to teach Watson to daydream.”

James Hendler is a professor at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and head of the computer science department. Follow him on Twitter @jahendler.

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It seems like only yesterday Samsung released its flagship handset, the Galaxy S III, to a grateful public.  The specs were impressive at the time, and the price was affordable compared to existing and emerging competitors.

Samsung is not one to let its success go to its head.  Their impressive marketing budget, coupled with their zest for innovation has helped them climb to the top in a predominantly mobile marketplace.  Their latest handset, the Galaxy S IV  won’t be an exception to the rule!

The Galaxy S IV (SCH-i959), said to release to China Telecom, boasts some impressive benchmark results to say the least.  Specs listed were:

• 1.8Ghz Quad-core Exynos processor
• 1920 x 1080 FHD display
• CDMA/GSM
• Android Jelly Bean 4.2.1

Overall score as reported by AnTuTu Benchmark was an impressive 26,250!  Compared with the test results of 14,544 from the HTC DROID DNA, you can see how impressive this score really is.

Source:  Blog Of Mobile

Come comment on this article: CDMA Version of Samsung Galaxy S IV (SCH-I959) Pops up in Benchmark Test

On Thursday at TED2013, Chinese artist Liu Bolin talked about his remarkable photographic installations, in which he paints himself (and sometimes other people) with perfect camouflage to disappear into a busy background. His talk closed with a photo of Liu in the theater at Long Beach, disappearing himself into the stage with paint and pattern over the course of an evening. Watch the timelapse above to understand his process, which involves a lot of people saying “A little to the left… a little to the left …” I caught up with him to discuss.

Tell me about your process.

For the talk, I stood up on stage with my outfit pre-painted, and then one of my assistants worked with the camera and stood back to instruct the other painter on what to do, where to paint, what colors to use, until from the camera I appear invisible.

What inspires you to make a painting?

That’s a perplexing question for me. When I was preparing for the talk initially I thought I would prepare a talk about art, but then I realized it’s really difficult to talk about pure art in China, because it’s always tied to survival. My life in China has always been adding a lot of things to my physical body and mental, emotional state. For example, in my piece “Supermarket,” it has an actual weight on my body.

What makes an ideal shot?

Two things: position of camera and focus. Focus is the most important. For the piece I did for TED, the stage is very colorful and red, so I needed reds and pinks.

You mentioned in your talk that it’s not just an artist’s work but what they stand for. Can you talk more about that?

There’s a difference between Chinese artwork and foreign artwork. As a Chinese artist, I ask a lot of questions about society in my work. When I am abroad, though — for example when I went to the Louvre — because I’m usually overwhelmed by my artwork, I have to make art as a souvenir. The TED piece is more of the latter, a form of memory or a souvenir. This year I have a new plan. I think the TED stage will be the highlight of my new series, Happy New City. In the future I will create new kinds of art. My talk was as a summary to conclude what I’ve done before.

What kind of art do you enjoy?

First of all, that art has to move me. The creator of that art doesn’t have to be a famous person. The artwork I’m most interested in right now are those that take the subject from real life, such as mobile phones, because most people won’t think of those things as art objects. But through the work of this artist, people realize those objects can be art. This kind of art moves me.

The stable build for Internet Explorer 10 for Windows 7 has been released this week after spending a few months as a preview for developers.

The new browser from Microsoft is offered through Automatic Updates system to users with local administrator accounts, being automatically downloaded and installed without any notification.

Non-administrat… (read more)

I am sure I am not alone when I say that Evernote is one of my favorite services. It makes life so much easier — I can write a note on my PC and then see it on my phone when I am out. I can add an item to a shopping list and it appears on my wife’s phone while she is in the store. There are all sorts of cool possibilities. But, if you visit the service today then you may be in for a bit of a surprise.

When you try to log into the site you will be taken to a prompt that asks you to please change your password — no you did not enter your login credentials wrong. The service announced this morning that it was hacked. Dave Engberg of Evernote posted the bad news, while also trying to reassure customers that there is really nothing to worry about and that the password change is simply precautionary.

“Evernote’s Operations & Security team has discovered and blocked suspicious activity on the Evernote network that appears to have been a coordinated attempt to access secure areas of the Evernote Service”.

Engberg goes on to assure “in our security investigation, we have found no evidence that any of the content you store in Evernote was accessed, changed or lost. We also have no evidence that any payment information for Evernote Premium or Evernote Business customers was accessed”.

However, the company did find that the attackers were able to gain access to Evernote user information, which includes usernames, email addresses associated with accounts and also encrypted passwords. Engberg continues to resassure: “Even though this information was accessed, the passwords stored by Evernote are protected by one-way encryption”. The company claims that it is only forcing users to change current passwords as a measure of extra security.

The announcement wraps up with the usual plea to users about secure passwords — do not use dictionary words, never use the same password on multiple sites, and the other warnings generally associated with these events.

Upon hearing this news, I immediately visited my own account and, sure enough, was prompted to change my password. I store nothing of importance there — the hackers are welcome to my family’s grocery list. I would ask them only to buy some of it for us if, for some reason, they did gain access.

CEO of Nokia, Stephen Elop, was interviewed at this year’s Mobile World Congress in Barcelona with topics ranging from Nokia’s goal in an emerging market to the reason behind Windows Phone 8 on Nokia flagship devices. When asked about Nokia’s outlook on emerging markets, Elop says that opportunities in an emerging market come from offering innovative technology at low price points especially for first time smartphone users.

When it came to the topic of using Windows Phone 8 in their devices as opposed to Android, Elop noted that the reason for choosing Windows Phone 8 was to stand out amongst the competition who are utilizing other platforms. Elop said that Windows Phone 8 “can be the biggest operating system in the world,” but also said that “we have a lot of work to do with Microsoft to make that happen.” As far as sales go, he said, “Demand has exceed supply in some of our markets.” For the full interview with Bloomberg, click the source at the bottom and let us know your thoughts on Elop’s interview in the comments section below.

Source: Bloomberg

Come comment on this article: Nokia CEO Stephen Elop on Windows Phone 8: ‘It can be the biggest operating system in the world’

Google is a hardware company now, something that is too often overlooked. Last week, the search and information company launched its first computer, Chromebook Pixel, which I reviewed overnight yesterday. In August 2011, Google bought Motorola, one of the most iconic American brands and inventor of the cell phone, for $12.5 billion; the deal closed in May 2012. Moto makes handsets and tablets, among other things.

But Motorola is a brand in decline, and one Google should want to reinvigorate if the plan is to release more-compelling, more-innovative Androids. Why should ASUS, LG and Samsung manufacture Nexus devices when Google has a huge hardware subsidiary? Meanwhile, one of the three is a partner out of control. Samsung threatens to fracture the broader Android ecosystem — a problem I sternly warned about in April 2012 post “Google has lost control of Android“. A resurgent Motorola could bring unity back to the Force, as the saying goes. Google bets that Guy Kawasaki can help make that happen.

What a Guy

Kawasaki joined Moto this week, as a consultant/evangelist. In BetaNews group chat yesterday I described him as: “Smart. Articulate. Friendly. And your worst nightmare if marketing against you”. I know him, as many long-time journalists do, as a kind of devil incarnate. During Apple’s worst days, he joined as an evangelist. I summed up his role to colleagues yesterday: “Kawasaki is the reason Mac enthusiasts are crazy online. He organized the first attack squads, nurtured that whole culture of guerrilla evangelism”.

When Apple was a runt company, Kawasaki’s Mac attack squads clobbered people writing anything even slightly critical of Apple. Any long-time journalist knows the drill. You write X story about Apple and the innuendo-carting cultists swarm in accusing you of Windows bias and shilling for Microsoft. Or in this decade, Google. The accusations whack the writer’s credibility often with no substance (e.g., facts) to support them. The attack evangelism culture Kawasaki nurtured at Apple lives on long past his influence.

In this decade, Kawasaki is an Android convert — and quite vocal about it. He explains:

Every time I tell people that I don’t use any iOS products, people go a little nuts when they figure out I’m a pure Android guy. This is a list of my top ten reasons why I like Android more than iOS.

1. Selecting default applications to open files.
2. Making Chrome my default browser.
3. Viewing apps, no matter what folder they’re in, in an alphabetical list.
4. Installing different keyboards—for example, Swype.
5. Viewing windows containing live feed of appointments or emails (‘widgets’).
6. Using any micro-USB cable to charge an Android phone or tablet.
7. Receiving utomatic, unattended updates to the operating system and applications.
8. Making multiple aliases for apps, not simply moving apps around.
9. Using Google Now.
10. Viewing summaries of notification messages—for example, ’25 new messages’ instead of 25 individual notices.

Kawasaki is a good fit for Motorola. Colleague Alan Buckingham expressed in BN group chat yesterday: “I loved my Droid X, but I am certainly not a Motorola fanboy”. To which I responded: “Spend an hour with Guy and you would be”. Mihaita Bamburic chimed in: “Kawasaki is a genius. He’s incredibly skillful when it comes to speeches, I’ve seen him a couple of times on YouTube and he got me hooked”. I added: “He’s more effective, more believable than Steve Jobs, but just as charismatic”.

Android’s Motorola Debt

Google doesn’t just own Motorola, it owes something to the cellular technology pioneer — and also to Verizon. The carrier launched the Motorola Droid brand, backed by $100 million marketing budget, in autumn 2009. The move invigorated Android global growth, by lifting it in, at the time, the largest region adopting smartphones. Increased visibility, even more than sales, helped Android sales jump a stunning 888.8 percent in 2010, according to Gartner. Moto’s fortunes have since declined, but Verizon remains firmly committed to the Droid brand, even after getting iPhone in February 2011.

Globally, Motorola’s sales share has collapsed, just 1.7 percent in fourth quarter — that’s tenth place — according to Gartner. Remember Razr, which seemingly everyone who was anyone owned in the mid-Noughties? The original shipped in third quarter 2004, with shipments reaching 50 million less than two years later. Moto is a ghost of former glory, yet with solid engineering culture, enormous patent portfolio and Google’s backing.

Moto also has a core cult-like following of users devotedly committed to the brand. They remind me of Apple circa 1996, when closure looked likely but a small group remained loyal and vocal about the products. Kawasaki is among them: “I made the switch from iPhone to RAZR more than a year ago”. Verizon brought back to brand, combined with Droid, to smartphones, in October 2011 (sales started the next month).

A Galaxy Far, Far Away

Kawasaki’s enthusiasm for a Motorola smartphone is more significant than his Android embrace. The evangelist’s real mission, whether or not acknowledged, is to save Google from Samsung. The South Korean electronics giant is largely responsible for Android’s enormous market share gains, but in process inflicts great pains on the broader ecosystem.

Based on sales to end users, not shipments to carriers and dealers, Android captured 69.7 percent global smartphone share in fourth quarter, according to Gartner. Samsung, the world’s leader for all handsets and smartphones, accounted for a stunning 42.5 percent of all Androids sold. The next closest vendor: 6 percent. Samsung’s success is mixed for Android as a platform. The electronics company, and not Google, largely controls customers’ experience via TouchWiz UI and other features. Meanwhile, Android updates lag Samsung phones by many months. At least Samsung adopts the newest Android eventually, but TouchWiz skinned.

Eleven months ago, Forrester Research analyst Frank Gillette predicted that companies adapting Google’s open-source OS would “cause proprietary Android share to surpass the installed base of Google’s Android ecosystem in 2015. This further fragmentation will challenge Android developers, customers, and especially enterprises, and hamper the creation of a shared ecosystem”. Samsung, which is No. 2 to Apple on tablets, is front and center leading to a fractured — not fragmented — Android ecosystem.

Samsung’s priorities aren’t necessarily Google’s or to the benefit of a the broader Android ecosystem. The Galaxy brand is hugely successful, and a second gravity well pulling brand attention, and even app developers and content partners, to customized Android. Then there is the power that comes with success — massive dominance over the entire market of Android sales. Samsung is a partner Google obviously wants to keep, but also should keep from getting too powerful.

Nexus RAZR

Enter Guy Kawasaki and his task evangelizing and revitalizing the Motorola brand, which needs more commitment from Google. As slow as Samsung is sometimes to update Android, Moto often takes longer or leaves customers hanging with nothing. Google must also get behind the subsidiary and get it picking up the pace — in every way. The search and information giant is agile and quick to update products. Motorola is slow moving, like an abandoned ship. There needs to be good captain and crew to support Kawasaki’s efforts.

If he can succeed in them, and Google supports him, there’s no reason why a new class of Nexus devices — even Chromebooks — shouldn’t come from Motorola. Evangelism is a great starting point. This week, Kawasaki set up the Mobile Devices community on Google+. Discussion is excellent beginning.

Samsung isn’t a bad Android partner, but the company needs some serious competition. Google and Motorola can give it. Nexus devices show that the Android Army wants pure Android, without the fancy clothes draped over the green robot. Imagine something like Nexus RAZR. Competition can keep Samsung on course with Android, rather than diverting destinations. Otherwise, soon the company will have none — that’s the problem, the future.

I’d like to congratulate Guy Kawasaki on his new role and wish him well. That sentiment isn’t easily given from someone battling Mac guerrilla evangelists since the 1990s.

Photo Source: Guy Kawasaki’s Google+ Profile