Category: Software

As a long-time SugarSync user, I’m happy to see the file synchronization service continue to add new features. The latest one might not sound like much on the surface, but it’s one of those functions that creates simplicity in a product. New to SugarSync as of today is support for email uploads — just shoot a message to a unique email address and SugarSync will snag the attachments in the email. The uploaded objects are stored in your account on the SugarSync servers and are accessible on all other computers or devices attached to your account. Heck, at this point, you may not even need the email that contained the attachments, so you could save some local space and delete it.

I tested out the new “Upload by Email” feature and it worked as advertised. It’s an opt-in function, so I had to enable it in my account settings to get my unique email address — which I’ve just added as a contact in my address book for fast reuse purposes across all of my devices. The notes I sent included an Adobe PDF file, a Microsoft Word document and images — within a minute or so, all of the attachments appeared in my SugarSync server account and then on my MacBook, netbook, iPhone and Nexus One. That’s the overall feature I may like best about the product — the cross-platform support of PC, Mac, iPhone, Windows Mobile, BlackBerry and, since December, Android. Note that certain file types aren’t accepted for security reasons — .exe, .cmd and .bat, aren’t stored, for example.

Since email is everywhere these days, you could theoretically share the unique upload address with your inner circle of friends. Assuming they’re not going to clog up your SugarSync account with a gazillion useless attachments, they could simply send you file attachments directly through SugarSync. Hopefully, you trust your inner circle, but if you’re worried that they’ll send gobs of data to your account, SugarSync can even help with that. In addition to the new email upload functionality, the highest capacity plan is now 500 GB, which is double that of the previous largest. That kind of space will set you back $39.99 a month or $399 a year. Your friends are worth it though, aren’t they?

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

Who Owns Your Data In the Cloud?

After seeing ShopSavvy being delayed interminably, its nice to see another application arrive that does more or less the same  thing.

Mobiletag is a barcode scanner that allows one to read any type of direct or indirect barcodes (Datamatrix, flashcode, fotokody, QR Codes, 1D UPC, EAN 13), by simply using your Windows Mobile device’s camera.

The software integrates with a database of online stores and allows live price comparison, meaning even when out and about in a store one can still look for the best deal online.

Read more at Mobiletag.com here and find the download at FreewarePocketPC here.

 Xfire  is a freeware instant messaging service targeted at gamers, that also serves as a game server browser and has various other features, and currently has over 15.2 million registered users.

XfMobile is a mobile version of the software developed independently by XF-Mobile.com and features:

– Set up your status.
– Access your contacts directly from your mobile.
– Chat over WiFi, EDGE, 3G or even GPRS data connections.
– Search for and feed your contact list
– Change your Xfire status.
– Follow what games your Xfire friends are playing.
– See your friends’ avatar.
– See when your friends are writing to you.

The software should be arriving in the Windows Mobile Marketplace soon and can be found by searching xf-mobile.

Read more about the app at XF-Mobile.com here.

Ryan McBride wrote:

Sermo is getting a technology makeover. The Cambridge, MA-based provider of the country’s largest social networking website exclusively for physicians is planning to launch a revamped version of its site called Sermo X, intending to improve the online experience of its users and customers, company founder and CEO Daniel Palestrant tells Xconomy.

When CEOs tell me about product upgrades, I typically hold back yawns and try to change the subject. Yet it was clear during my meeting with Palestrant at his firm’s Kendall Square offices this month that the new version of the website has real business implications, a big one being that the tech makeover is expected to lower the startup’s operational costs as it seeks to generate its first profits in the near future.

Sermo is within months of releasing a revamped website written in the Ruby on Rails open source Web programming language, replacing the Java-based software the firm has always used. Without getting into too much inside geek baseball, the Rails-based site won’t require as much heavy lifting from a technical support standpoint, according to Palestrant. He says the switch from Java to Ruby was precipitated by a trip he made some years back to the West Coast, where he figured out that other Web startups’ use of Ruby on Rails was enabling them to operate with leaner teams than his own, among other advantages.

Indeed, Sermo’s technical changes factored into the significant layoff it made in December, because two-thirds of the people whose jobs were cut were engineers for the firm’s Java-based site and software, says Palestrant. (He declined to specify the exact number of employees who were cut, but sources have told Xconomy, which was the first to report the layoffs, that about 30 workers at Sermo were let go.) The CEO says he is not out raising money right now, in part because the cutbacks will help his firm conserve its existing cash in the bank. Sermo has raised $39.2 million through three rounds of venture capital investment.

“Part of the reason we did the restructuring was because we didn’t want to …Next Page »

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Filed under: Safety, Technology, Toyota

You may have noticed that there have been a large number of reports recently about Toyota and the continuing series of recalls it has announced in recent weeks. Here at Autoblog we try to be fair and tell the story as best we can without being inflammatory. Unfortunately, the same can not be said of all media outlets. ABC News, and reporter Brian Ross in particular, have been particularly vigorous in pursuit of a story – not the story.

Let’s make one thing clear. Autoblog is not a cheerleading section for Toyota, or for trial lawyers, TV presenters or politicians with nothing better to do. We’d like to present the information to our readers without unnecessarily frightening anyone.

We also want to avoid the sort of debacle that happened with CBS and the Audi 5000 in the ’80s and NBC with the General Motors side-saddle gas tanks in the ’90s. In each of those cases, tests were setup to “simulate” the purported problem, but the tests did not exactly simulate real world conditions and showed unrealistic scenarios.

A recent report from Ross on ABC News featured an “automotive expert” named David W. Gilbert from Southern Illinois University attempting to demonstrate an electronic glitch in a Toyota Avalon. Let’s discuss this report in more detail after the jump.

Tired of Toyota recall news? Try out the recall-free version of Autoblog.

Continue reading Analysis: ABC News report shouldn’t panic Toyota drivers

Analysis: ABC News report shouldn’t panic Toyota drivers originally appeared on Autoblog on Tue, 23 Feb 2010 19:28:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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The HD2 has recently been drowning in new builds, from the T-mobile HD2, to now the European HD2. The video above shows one of the leaked builds for the HD2 in action. The ROM is also using a new radio that seems to be very efficient and stable. There is not much to say about the video but, if that is what 2.09 software looks like, then 2.10 must really be awesome.

O Inbox 2 é uma aplicação que lhe permite conjugar as várias caixas de correio e contas de redes sociais numa única aplicação, facilitando assim a gestão da sua vida social online e dos contactos feitos em cada uma das redes sociais.

Com esta aplicação poderá também entrar em contacto com pessoas das várias redes sociais, como que se estivesse a enviar um e-mail para pessoas de uma única lista de contactos.

Caso esteja no trabalho, poderá ocultar a sua caixa de correio pessoal e as redes sociais e assim focar-se apenas no que está a fazer.

Com o Inbox 2 poderá organizar-se muito facilmente e sincronizar a informação com o seu desktop, conta online ou telemóvel. Clique aqui para aceder ao site oficial do Inbox 2.

WebTuga – Inbox 2 – Junte as suas caixas de correio e redes sociais

Even the well-received announcement of Windows Phone 7 has not caused rumours of a RIM buy-out by Microsoft to die.

"It’s something I know they’ve talked about — buying Research in Motion or even Nokia," Toan Tran, an analyst at Morningstar, said of Microsoft. "To really compete in this business, Microsoft needs to get into the hardware business, where they are able to control the entire user experience."

"Apple has shown that’s the model that works," Tran added. "In a consumer device, people just want something that works, they don’t want something as complicated as a PC."

Microsoft has about $35 billion in cash and short term investments and a market cap of around $248 billion, making RIM’s $39 billion market cap pricy but affordable.

Microsoft has always resisted competing with their OEM’s, but as traditional Windows Mobile OEM’s stray to other OS’s this may become less of an issue.

The new consumer focus of Windows Phone 7 series may also be a sign of Microsoft abandoning the Windows Mobile business market, leaving the company in need of another route into the enterprise market.

Chief Executive Steve Ballmer has however pooh-poohed the idea:

"The word ‘ever’ is a big word, but I certainly don’t feel like that’s the right strategy for us today," Ballmer told Reuters at Mobile World Congress recently.

"Buying somebody would be a shortcut," said Kim Caughey, an analyst at Fort Pitt Capital Group. "But if they can give business users more functionality (with the new phones), they have a shot."

Morgan Keegan analyst Tavis McCourt said he did not believe Microsoft has yet given up on its software licensing strategy:

"Microsoft doesn’t want to be in the hardware space. It would alienate its other hardware customers," said McCourt.

Do our readers believe the rumours of a RIM purchase is credible? Let us know in the comments.

Source: Reuters.com

Microsoft is pretty serious about gaming on Windows Phone 7 series, and are intending to recruit developers directly from their successful Xbox franchise.

To underline this they are spending 25% of their time at the Games Developers Conference talking about Windows Phone 7.  The event on the 10th March, will in fact precede the MIX10 developers day which so far has been held as the focus of developer attention for Windows Phone 7.

The write up for the day provides some interesting detail on the XBox Live service, suggesting leader boards and game invites will form a central part of the experience on the device.

Read the full line up below.

Developing Games for Windows Phone 7 Series
Speaker: Michael Klucher
Time: 12:00pm-1:00pm

The future of Windows Phone has never looked better. With the release of Windows Phone 7 Series, game developers will be able to create amazing content rapidly. This talk outlines the basic framework for games, presents Windows Phone 7 Series device characteristics, and provides and overview of game development on the phone.

High Performance 3D Games on Windows Phone 7 Series
Speaker: Tomas Vykruta & Shawn Hargreaves
Time: 2:00pm-3:00pm

Windows Phone 7 Series is a highly capable platform for game development. This talk covers 3D game development on Windows Phone 7 Series with an emphasis on the unique characteristics of the platform. The talk also focuses on optimizing high-performance games for the platform, to help developers squeeze out every last drop of performance.

Development and Debugging Tools for Windows Phone 7 Series
Speaker: Cullen Waters
Time: 3:00pm-4:00pm

This talk discusses the basic tools available to game developers on Windows Phone 7 Series, including debugging, emulation, and performance tools. The talk places special emphasis on best practices for performance and profiling tools that can be used to optimize games for Windows Phone 7 Series.

Bringing the Best of Xbox LIVE to Windows Phone 7 Series
Speaker: Adam Schaeffer
Time: 4:00pm-5:00pm

The Xbox LIVE service is going mobile! With Windows Phone 7 Series, core features such as Achievements, Leaderboards, and game invites will be available to games on Windows Phone 7 Series devices. This talk covers the basics of the services available and how they can be used to enable core Xbox LIVE functionality in games. In addition, this talk will present best practices for connecting Windows Phone 7 Series games to back-end servers.

Are you looking forward to having so much Xbox on your phone? Let us know below.

Via MSMobiles.com

 Windows Phone 7 Chassis 2 and 3?

In an recent Australian podcast  Microsoft Australia Developer Evangelist hosts (Michael Kordahi and Andrew Coates) revealed some more information about the other possible Windows Phone 7 series form factors.

We already know Chassis 1 describes a full touch slab device with a high performance processor.  It now appears Chassis 2 describes a portrait device with a sliding keyboard, like the Palm Treo (or more likely the Pure leaked by Gizmodo).

The final Chassis design, number 3, was not specified. One podcaster suggested a candybar, but I suspect a bigger likelihood would be a landscape slider like the Turtle, also leaked by Gizmodo and confirmed by many other sources.

Windows Phone 7 will only have a very limited form factors, to make it easier for developers to create applications without worrying about variation in performance, resolution, RAM, control surfaces and the many features which often help us decide which handset to get.

Do any of our readers regret this paring down in form factors we can expect over the next year, or is this standardization move long overdue?  Let us know below.

Via ZDNet.com

The Astonishing Tribe‘s latest demo is Recognizr, an app that blends Polar Rose’s face recognition tech with augmented reality and social networking—point your phone’s camera at somebody’s face, and their contact info and social networks will magically appear.

You have to join the Recognizr service and upload a photo to the database in order to be recognized, so it only works with people who’ve decided that, yes, if you take a head-on picture of them, it’s okay for you to see their social networking info. The prototype app’s built on Android, though Polar Rose‘s facial recognition tech will work on an iPhone 3GS too.

It’s actually not really that invasive or creepy—it definitely seems even less so than another facial recognition social networking app from MWC—since it’s completely opt-in, and really, the explosion of location-based services that broadcast where you are would seem to give people more pause. Or maybe these things should bother me more. Hello, I live on the internet. [TAT via Technology Review via Dvice]

mixHDJ brings the power of conventional DJ hardware to you windows mobile touch screen phone. For the beginner it provides an ideal tool to learn to DJ, beat match, cue music and cross fade between tracks. For the established DJ it gives you great way to listen to and mix your own music on the move, show off you DJ skills or perform a short notice gig.

The software features:

• Load separate MP3s into each deck and control position, pitch & cue points individually.
• Quick pitch shifting from -8 to + 8%
• Display shows track name, current pitch, time elapsed and which deck it currently active.
• Through animation provide instant visual feedback as to what your selected deck is doing.
• The multi-function platter provides fine pitch tuning, pitch nudge and cue set facilities.
• Access to the finger touch responsive cross fader provides a quick and easy way to cross fade your tracks.
• Fast scrolling large text mp3 browser so you can quickly and accurately select the next tune.
• DJ from your phone speaker, headphones and speaker or connect to a professional DJ mixer.

The software is a very reasonable £4.99 via Google Checkout.

Read more about this innovative app here.

We smartphone addicts are constantly bandying around battery specifications in millamps and Volts, but the power pack itself is only part of the run-time equation. Just as important is how much power all of the smartphone guts need to run, but it’s a challenge to see that information in detail. Or at least it was a challenge.

This morning I was reading up on the IEEE’s website and found a free Android application for this very situation. It’s called PowerTutor and comes by way of the University of Michigan. I installed the software on my Nexus One and while not exactly the most intuitive application to use, it does provide insight as to what’s using the most juice — radios, the display and even how much power is consumed by particular applications.

After just a few minutes of use, I’m finding that PowerTutor easily surpasses the native power consumption offering that’s native to Android. To see what Google currently includes, just tap Settings, About Phone, Battery Use in a recent version of Android. The native feature simply shows the percentage of battery use by component or application.

PowerTutor gets down to the nitty-gritty and can graph the actual power consumption over time at the component, software or radio level. And all things being equal, I’d rather use a less power intensive application over a similar one that eats up my handset battery at a faster rate. The differences in power usage might be small at a given point in time, but over time, they can add up.

Although consumers might find occasional use for PowerTutor, it’s likely to present a bigger benefit to developers. With a tool like this, they can monitor the power requirements needed for their software — and potentially optimize the code to reduce those requirements. If they can make the software run on less juice, it could be a compelling feature to tout.

PowerTutor was created for and “works best” on a G1 handset, but the U of M creators estimate that it’s still reliable on other Android devices. The application itself uses about 5% of a handset’s CPU, so running it all the time is likely to be counter-productive. Why run down the battery with software that measures the run down of the battery, right?

Image Credit: PowerTutor.org

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

Green IT Winners of Losers in 2009

Gartner today reported its worldwide smartphone share findings and it’s more of the same for those watching the numbers. For months we’ve seen smartphone stalwart platforms like Symbian and Windows Mobile lose out to the relative upstarts. Research In Motion’s BlackBerry, Apple’s iPhone and Google’s Android operating systems all gained ground. Palm’s rejuvenation with webOS also grabbed a little piece of the pie, which should continue as Palm partners with new carriers.

There are two aspects difficult to see from the above graph I built from Gartner’s numbers. It can be confusing to see a higher red value because it looks like a platform has grown. In fact, this case shows the decline of a platform as red indicates 2008 market share, while blue is for 2009 share. The other item is the percentage growth or decline for each platform. Here are the actual market share numbers from Gartner, along with the percentage change over the prior year. These numbers clearly show who’s growing, and by how much, as compared to those whose shares are eroding.

The percentages add credence to the newer platforms gaining at the expense of the older ones. But why should you even care about this as a consumer? What do market share numbers have to do with your own personal smartphone purchase?

There are a number of factors, but I think the main one is software. I’ve harped on this point before, but it bears repeating in light of the Gartner numbers. Developers are following the sales figures because the better selling platforms offer a wider audience interested in the apps being developed and sold. Yes, there are other factors as noted in our recent GigaOm Pro Research report on what developers are considering for mobile platforms (subscription required), but this one is key. And the number of apps for a handset — and more importantly, the quality of those titles — can make a particular device more appealing to you.

Let me offer a real-world application of this concept. I own both an iPhone and an Android handset. I’m considering leaving one or the other to reduce my monthly bills. But right now, there are key and unique applications on each platform that the other doesn’t offer. So I’m in a holding pattern because in some cases there isn’t an equally functional and equivalent app on the one platform or the other. A perfect example is my long-time usage of RunKeeper for the iPhone to track my workouts. I haven’t just invested in a software title — I’ve invested in a platform because my data is tabulated on the RunKeeper website. (Note that RunKeeper is working on an Android version of their software.) Could I switch to SportyPal for Android? Sure, but how do I move my training history from one platform to another? My entire decision process is based on the software — much like it was for many Windows users years ago that couldn’t migrate to Mac due to non-equivalent software tool choices. And this just one of several possible examples.

Is your everyday, average consumer limited by the apps on a particular platform? Probably not if they’re moving from a feature phone to a smartphone as many are. After all, these folks don’t yet have experience with the different platforms to see which apps are offered and which are “missing.” But if you’re familiar with smartphones, I think there’s an app constraint that either does or could affect your handset purchase decisions. Thoughts?

Ryan McBride wrote:

Monster Worldwide (NASDAQ:MWW), an online employment services company, is laying off 200 workers around the globe, including nearly 100 jobs between its Maynard, MA, headquarters and Cambridge, MA, offices, company spokesman Matthew Henson confirmed today. Henson said that the layoffs are part of a restructuring plan that has taken place for the past two years. The company, which operates the world’s largest online employment website, Monster.com, employs 5,600 people worldwide. These job cuts will be reflected in our Boston Tech Layoff Tracker.

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As much as I love Pandora for mobile music streaming, I’ve become more enamored with Slacker over time. Today, Slacker added what was promised at last month’s Consumer Electronics Show — music caching that enables offline playback. BlackBerry handsets already offered music caching, but it wasn’t a wireless function. As of today, with the latest version of Slacker, it is for BlackBerry handsets as well as Android devices.

Offline music caching requires a Slacker Radio Plus subscription, which is $4.99 per month, or a yearly fee of $47.88. The subscription also provides your music ad-free, offers unlimited skips and complete lyrics for songs. Slacker says that if you’re not a subscriber, you can still test the offline caching with a 14-day trial. Nosing around the forums, I see that caching will take place over Wi-Fi or your phone’s cellular connection. Nice to see that it isn’t limited to just Wi-Fi, although that’s the default connection. You can also schedule an auto-cache so the software will be fully loaded when you wake in the morning, offering connection-free tunes during the day.

The new Slacker version for BlackBerry is limited to certain handsets. Older Curve 8830 plus 8300-series and lower devices aren’t supported with this version, so if you have one of these, don’t look for the new cache feature. Given the general similarity between Pandora, which offers both a free and paid program, I’m curious if you’re using Pandora, Slacker, or both of these music apps on your handset. And is anyone besides me wondering why Apple is leaving money on the table by not offering a music subscription service?

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

Forget Synching, Let’s Put Music in the Cloud!