Google released videos of the twenty eight Android sessions from the conference, conveniently collected as a playlist:

They also have individual playlists for specific tracks.
Design:

Develop:

Distribute:

For those of us who couldn’t attend Google I/O, the videos are the next best thing.

However, in tablets specifically my personal feeling is that, while Samsung is one of the leaders, the most exciting vendor using Android is ASUS. ASUS doesn’t have the recognition and attention of Samsung, but they’ve been doing some great work in tablets – and it looks like Google took notice as they took ASUS’s planned $249 Eee Pad MeMO 7-inch tablet and reworked it to become the $199 Nexus 7, Google’s first branded tablet. The first quad-core 7-inch tablet and the first device to launch with Android 4.1 Jelly Bean.

In the first generation of real Android tablets, those launched with Android 3.0 Honeycomb, the Galaxy Tab was well known for its sleek design. But the ASUS Transformer, and later Transformer Prime, we nearly as slim and light while keeping functionality like a microSD slot, which the Galaxy Tab did without. And, of course, they had the unique capability of effectively becoming a netbook with a purpose designed keyboard dock. They’re tablets have been competitively priced and have had a series of firsts. The first Android tablets designed with a keyboard dock, the first ‘slider’ tablet with the Eee Pad Slider SL101, the first quad-core Android tablet with the NVIDIA Tegra 3 powered Transformer Prime, the first HD Android tablet with the 1920×1200 10.1″ Transformer Pad Infinity, and more.

The the Transformer Pad Infinity’s display is 224ppi, effectively making it the Android market’s answer to the iPad’s 264ppi retina display. Though I personally feel the 10.1″ 1920×1200 16:10 aspect ratio display on the Infinity is preferable to the iPad’s 9.7″ 2048×1536 4:3 aspect ratio display when it comes to consuming content, especially HD video.

Of course, ASUS also has the Padfone which is a truly revolutionary design that I’ve been waiting for someone to build for years. I hope it finds its way to the US in an LTE model. ASUS also has a good track record for updating their devices to newer Android versions. It hasn’t been painless, but they’ve done a better job that a lot of the bigger names. And we’ve just heard that even the original Transformer and Slider will be receiving Android 4.1 Jelly Bean, along with the newer models.

All of these, IMHO, have been sleek, well designed products. I myself own the Transformer Prime (though I’m starting to feel the lust pangs for the Transformer Pad Infinity since I don’t see Verizon picking up the Padfone soon) and I couldn’t be happier with it. My wife & I gave our nephew the Transformer last xmas and he’s still using it regularly. He hasn’t lost interest or broken it – not bad considering he’s 13. I’ve recommended the ASUS Transformer line to many people, as I think they’re truly the best Android tablets out there.

The keyboard dock, or just the capability of using one, is a major advantage over other tablets for anyone looking to use a tablet for productivity. A keyboard case or Bluetooth keyboard just isn’t the same. The keyboard dock makes an effective case for the tablet in one solid, easy to carry, solid package. And the extra battery life is most welcome. I love the way ASUS designed it to keep the tablet battery charged, charging it from the keyboard battery when connected. That way the tablet is always topped up if you want to use it solo, and the keyboard provides a kind of portable charger if the tablet gets drained.

Performance is top notch and inclusion of memory card slots and ports makes the ASUS tablet more flexible than some of the competition. Personally I think the Galaxy Tab 2 line was something of a disappointment. It is really more of a refresh of the original Galaxy Tab than a next-generation tablet. Similarly the Motorola Xoom 2/Xyboard wasn’t a big jump from the original Xoom. With the ‘flagship’ vendors kind of dropping the ball it really left the market open to ASUS, and other vendors like Acer and Lenovo, to produce some of the best tablet values considering performance and price.

I think there is a strong argument to be made that ASUS is really the leading Android tablet maker when it comes to innovation, value, and functionality. I think they deserve more attention from consumers and the press covering the tablet market. Whether they get it or not, I hope they continue down the same road and continue to provide innovative products. If you’re considering an Android tablet purchase I think you’d be well served to carefully consider ASUS’s offerings. The second generation ‘low-end’ model Transformer Pad TF300T is a close match to my first generation ‘high-end’ Transformer Prime TF201, and the model I think most buyers will be looking at.

ASUS recently released a series of videos which gives us a peak into the design process and philosophy that shaped the Transformer products, especially the new Transformer Pad and Pad Infinity. I think they’re a nice look behind the scenes and not overly full marketing spin.

So what do you think? Do you agree that ASUS is really the flagship Android tablet maker? Do you think someone else is? If so, why do you feel that way? Leave a comment!

We’ve seen a few real work examples of augmented reality, with varying degrees of success. The most common are smartphone applications, such as Layar, which can overlay information onto the world as seen through the phone’s camera. So you can hold up the phone and call up different information – like icons for restaurants around you, or information culled from various social media sites, etc. But you don’t want to walk around holding your cell phone up in front of you, awkwardly looking at the world through its screen.

Well, Google has unveiled one of their pie in the sky projects aimed at making augmented reality practical – Project Glass. And it isn’t just a concept, Google co-founder Sergey Brin has been spotted in public wearing an early working prototype. The initial concept appears to be a monocular display that is worn like a pair of glasses. A combiner optic sits in front of the eye with most of the hardware contained in the frames. The basic information is displayed such that is appears in the user’s field of view, but when not displaying anything the combiner should appear transparent. They’ve also talked about a version for those who wear prescription glasses, so they’re not left out.

It is very early days and who knows when or even if Google commercializes the technology. But it does seem like just a matter of time until we have something like this available. The real problem has been the size of the technology. Past efforts to create something similar have relied on bulky LCD displays, and generally required the glasses to be cabled into a separate battery and processing unit. Google is hoping to create something self-contained within Project Glass.

The promotional video they released with the announcement of the project gives us a, somewhat cheesy, look at what they’re hoping to accomplish:

However, sometimes there are things I find amusing, generally when someone has really put the effort into it. I generally find the stuff ThinkGeek.com comes up with to be funny.

And Google really puts some work into their April Fool’s Day jokes.

What about you? Any other gems out there?

Firefox 4 and later, Chrome 6 and later, and Opera 10.60 and later have native support for WebM video. IE9 will play WebM with an extension. Android has had native WebM support since 2.3 Gingerbread. WebM is a combination of the VP8 video codec, which Google acquired when they purchased On2 Technologies, the Vorbis open source audio codec, and the Matroska container format. It is designed from the ground up to be optimized for the web, and Google has released all of the patents so it is free and open for anyone to use. And it really is a solid format.

But WebM has struggled to overcome the lead held by H.264, the most popular format for online video. H.264, which is a short way of saying MPEG-4 Part 10 or MPEG-4 AVC, is a patent encumbered video format. Using H.264 requires paying royalties through the MPEG LA, which is why Mozilla resisted supporting it in their products. But H.264 is so ubiquitous that they’ve decided they must support it just to remain relevant in the browser market. Without H.264 support they felt that they’d effectively be locking themselves out of the market.

One of the biggest obstacles for WebM is Apple. Apple has long been a strong backer of H.264 and that’s the native format for all of the iProducts, as well as QuickTime. Apple has not implemented WebM in any of their iProducts, nor in their Safari browser. And with the large and growing usage of mobile devices, and Apples strong share of that market, it pretty much forces content providers to use H.264. While they could provide both WebM and H.264, as YouTube does, most providers simply stick with just H.264 as it is effectively universal. Apple has a horse in the race – they’re one of the patent holders behind H.264, so they’re not keen on any royalty free alternative dethroning it. Microsoft is also one of the patent holders, which may help explain why IE9 lacks native support as well.

There is some hope as the W3C is considering making WebM support a requirement under the HTML 5 standards effort. It is considered beneficial to have one universal, royalty free format that authors could count on. But, of course, companies like Apple & Microsoft are resisting the standardization effort. If it goes through they’d be forced to either implement WebM in their products or stop claiming to be HTML 5 compliant.

Coincidentally with the recent hubbub, StreamingMedia.com posted a video of Google’s John Luther and Matt Frost’s session on WebM at the recent HTML5 Video Summit in Los Angeles. It is an interesting look at just what WebM is, the goals behind it, and where the team is heading. Check it out:

Early in the presentation you may have noticed that they play a video for the audience, off camera. Based on the audio I believe this is the video they played:

I’d love to get a copy of their slides, it is an interesting presentation – for very geek values of interesting, of course.

• Store up to 20,000 songs for free with millions of tracks available to purchase
• Select from more than 450,000 Android Apps and Games
• Rent any of thousands of movies, including HD and new releases
• Choose from the world’s largest selection of ebooks, over four million titles

As part of the launch Android devices running 2.2 or later will see updates: Android Market, Music, Videos, and Books will become Play Store, Play Music, Play Movies, and PlayBooks, respectively. The updates began rolling out today.

It isn’t quite the same as Chrome on the desktop, yet, but it is certainly a nice start. It provides a better experience as a daily browser than the Android browser, IMHO – which isn’t saying the Android browser is bad, Chrome is just better. Especially on the larger tablet screen, where the Android browser, evolved on phones, shows its limitations. Right now Chrome for Android is only available for Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich, which fortunately both my phone and tablet run, so it isn’t yet available to the majority of Android users but I expect that will change.

It has some nice features too, like syncing your bookmarks and open tabs with the desktop. If you have a device running Android 4.0 I strongly recommend checking it out.

• LG – We’re thrilled to welcome global consumer electronics leader LG to the Google TV family. LG will showcase a new line of TVs powered by Google TV running on their own L9 chipset at CES.
• Marvell – Also new to the Google TV family this year is Marvell, an innovative worldwide leader in chipsets. Marvell will be showcasing a new generation of Google TV solutions which will help bring more products across more price points to consumers.
• MediaTek – We’re also excited to partner with MediaTek, the leading Taiwanese chipset designer. MediaTek chipsets will power yet another wave of Google TV devices.
• Samsung – We’re excited to work closely with Samsung to bring Google-TV powered Samsung devices to market in 2012.
• Sony – We’re happy to build on our partnership with Sony. At CES, Sony will unveil new devices for the US and plans to offer Google TV powered products in several countries around the world in 2012.
• Vizio – Last year we announced our partnership with Vizio at CES. This year we’re excited to join Vizio as they hold private demos at CES showcasing their new line of Google TV-powered products.

The shift to ARM based processors has been widely anticipated, though the specific partnerships with Marvell and MediaTek is new info. It is a little surprising as you might expect well known chip vendors from the mobile industry, such as NVIDIA, Texas Instruments, and Samsung, to be involved but perhaps Google feels the requirements for Google TV are different enough from mobile Android systems that alternate chip designs are better.

Sony is the only vendor who brought first generation products to market to return to this list. Samsung and Vizio both talked about Google TV at the last CES, but held off on shipping products. Which was probably for the best, given the multitude of issues with Google TV 1.0. Now that Google TV 2.0 is out, and is vastly improved over its predecessor, it is much more viable as a connected TV platform. With the addition of LG, if all four vendors really execute on Google TV in their new models, we may well see Google make good on their bold claims of Google TV being in the majority of new TVs this year.

Via the Google TV Blog.

Edit: I see in my YouTube feeds that they’ve also posted a video preview of what’s to come:

AT&T has settled with TiVo, offering payments that will total at least $215 million, and potentially much more, in exchange for a mutual patent licensing deal. TiVo will receive $51 million up front, followed by recurring quarterly payments guaranteed through June 2018, for a total minimum payment of $215 million. In addition to these minimum payments, AT&T will pay recurring per-subscriber monthly license fees should the level of U-Verse subscribers exceed“certain levels”. Just what those levels are wasn’t revealed in the press release, but TiVo apparently expects the total payments to“significantly exceed” the minimums. In this case what’s good for AT&T is good for TiVo – the more subscribers they get, the more TiVo makes.

The Form 8-K TiVo filed with the SEC regarding this settlement reveals more of the details about the payments as well as the patents involved:

Under the Agreement, AT&T has agreed to pay TiVo a minimum amount of $215,000,000 (the “Payment to TiVo”) plus incremental monthly fees per DVR subscriber if the growth of AT&T’s subscriber base exceeds certain pre-determined levels. Based on currently available industry forecasts, TiVo expects that the total fees payable to it by AT&T under the Agreement will significantly exceed the guaranteed minimum Payment to TiVo. The first $51,000,000 of the Payment to TiVo is due on January 3, 2012 and the remaining amount is due to TiVo in equal installments 30 days after the end of each calendar quarter in the amount of $5 million for the first four calendar quarters and approximately $6.5 million in subsequent calendar quarters through the calendar quarter ending June 30, 2018. Any incremental additional per subscriber fees are due to TiVo on the same schedule.

Pursuant to the Agreement, TiVo granted AT&T a limited license under its advanced television patents, including the patents that TiVo had asserted against AT&T (U.S. Patent Nos. 6,233,389, 7,493,015 and 7,529,465), to make, have made, use, sell, offer to sell and import advanced television technology in connection with AT&T multichannel video programming services, including AT&T U-verse, subject to certain limitations and exclusions. AT&T granted TiVo a limited license under its advanced television patents, including the patents that AT&T had asserted against TiVo (U.S. Patent Nos. 5,809,492, 5,922,045, 6,118,976 and 6,983,478), to make, have made, use, sell, offer to sell and import advanced television technology in connection with TiVo products and services, including products and services provided to other multichannel video programming service providers, subject to certain limitations and exclusions.

We may learn more about the terms when TiVo files their Form 10-K after their fiscal year ends on January 31, 2012.

In addition to the settlement payments there is also the indirect benefit to TiVo in reducing their legal costs by no longer needing to pursue the suit. It also eliminates the distraction and allows their legal team to focus their efforts on Verizon. Speaking of Verizon, that’s where all eyes are now as they’re currently the sole remaining target for TiVo’s patent suits. With victories against EchoStar/DISH and now AT&T, it doesn’t seem unreasonable to expect Verizon to taking a serious look at their chances of victory and weighing it against the cost of a settlement. I fully expect TiVo to also be making a reinvigorated push to establish deals with the remaining US cable providers, such as Time Warner Cable, Cablevision, and Bright House Networks.

Taking a look at the top 10 US MVPDs (as of June 2011):

1. Comcast Corporation 22,525,000 – business relationship to allow VOD access to retail TiVo units, now in trials
2. DirecTV 19,433,000 – business relationship with licensing and new THR-22 DirecTiVo just released
3. Dish Network Corporation 14,056,000 – $500 million legal settlement and licensing
4. Time Warner Cable, Inc. 12,235,000 – no known agreement or licensing
5. Cox Communications, Inc. 4,838,000 – business relationship to allow VOD access to retail TiVo units, in development
6. Charter Communications, Inc. 4,413,000 – distributes TiVo directly to customers
7. Verizon Communications, Inc. 3,848,000 – ongoing patent lawsuit
8. AT&T, Inc. 3,407,000 – $215 million legal settlement and licensing
9. Cablevision Systems Corporation 3,284,000 – no known agreement or licensing
10. Bright House Networks LLC 2,139,000 – no known agreement or licensing

In addition, of course, TiVo is being distributed to customers of smaller cable MSOs Suddenlink (#11), RCN (#16), and Grande Communications (not in the top 25). Each victory, licensing deal, or business arrangement strengthens TiVo’s hand at the negotiating table. TWC, like Comcast, is large enough that they develop a lot of their technology and software in house. As such I don’t really expect them to adopt TiVo as their new platform, as Charter has. However, I would not be surprised to see them make a deal with TiVo to support VOD on retail TiVo units, just as Comcast and Cox have, in exchange for staying out of the legal crosshairs.

Verizon is more of a wildcard. They have a rocky track record when it comes to developing and releasing software updates for their FiOS STBs. And they have a small enough user base that outsourcing their software development to TiVo and benefiting from their economies of scale might benefit them. Their architecture is not all that different from Virgin Media in the UK and ONO in Spain. TiVo has already shown they can handle a hybrid cable/IPTV system with those networks, which is what FiOS is. To me that would be the ideal solution, as FiOS joining Team TiVo would increase development funding. And it is likely that they’d push the addition of features to match what they’ve implemented in house, which would benefit everyone. But they may also simply negotiate a licensing settlement like AT&T’s.

AT&T is pure IPTV and they’re using Microsoft software end-to-end. It was pretty much an impossibility that they’d adopt TiVo’s software for their STBs given the infrastructure they’re using. The licensing settlement is really the best result we could hope for in this case. Cablevision and Bright House could easily adopt TiVo as their next-generation STB platform. They’re smaller than Charter, who already has, and Suddenlink, also a TiVo user, is more than half as large as Bright House.

Oh, there is another reason I think TiVo will move more aggressively to establish deals with more MSOs on the back of this settlement: Google. More specifically Google’s pending acquisition of Motorola, the largest STB vendor for cable systems in the US, and Google TV. Back in August when I looked at the announcement, and specifically at the implications for TiVo, and then more recently in November, I stated that I full expect Google to bring the Google TV platform to Motorola STBs as a standard option.

More and more MSOs are looking at OTT (over-the-top) content to increase their competitiveness, which is a prime reason MSOs have turned to TiVo, and Google TV’s Android platform and apps would be a huge boon. Google has Sage TV to provide DVR technology and placeshifting, which also allows them to compete with EchoStar’s SlingLoaded offerings. They could build the streaming client into every Android phone and tablet sold, as well as Google+, that’s a very big stick – or carrot, depending on how you look at it. If Google’s acquisition of Motorola goes through, they will do this. I’m certain of it; it just makes too much sense.

But it will all take time, most likely a few years. The acquisition itself will take time. And then the work to port Google TV to Motorola HW and/or developing new HW to better support Google TV/Android needs to be done. Then they need to land MSO clients for the new HW/SW bundle, and get it deployed. It all takes time. And that time gives TiVo a window to expand their beachhead in the industry. Once an MSO has a significant deployment of TiVo HW and/or SW in the field they’re much less likely to walk away from that investment and adopt another platform.

I expect TiVo to redouble their efforts on the back of this victory. They may even have some deals in their back pocket to announce at CES this month. But for now they can celebrate one victory in an ongoing war.

Watching the video associated with the post was interesting because it reminded me of things I’d long since forgotten. I’m so used to using Google every day, from my PC and my Droid, that it seems like it has always been like it is now. But seeing the old page designs, the changes in the search results page over the years, you realize how far it has come.

I’d totally forgotten what it was like ten years ago when Google only updated roughly each month, so search results we’re always topical. Now I can search on some topics and find blog posts I made just hours earlier. And we completely take it for granted now. When some new event happens how many of us turn to Google, or another search engine, to find the latest stories? That just wasn’t possible ten years ago. I think it is awesome, and I certainly wouldn’t want to go back to the days before Google, Wikipedia, et al.

Via CNET.

They were very cagey in their responses, largely due to the legal issues of the pending merger and the limitations on what the two companies can do together until the merger is complete. But it certainly sounds like they’re looking at Android, probably in a form similar to Google TV, as Motorola’s new STB platform. This is exactly what I talked about in August when the merger was first announced. The buyout, or merger if you prefer, is about more than phones and patents. It seems like most of the press surrounding the merger continues to focus on just phones and patents, but Google is playing a much bigger game. Motorola only has 4% of the global smartphone market, but they’re the dominant player in the US cable STB market. Google also has SageTV, which was asked about int he videos but they declined to talk about it, and we still don’t know how it will be used. But it seems logical that it will play a role in the future of the Google TV platform and/or a related STB OS.

There are a lot questions and the answers could have a major impact on the industry. Android runs primarily on ARM core chips. Google TV launched on Intel chips, but it is moving to ARM. Cable STBs tend to use embedded chips using MIPS cores. Could Motorola STBs shift to ARM for Android? That would be a huge change for traditional STB chip vendors, and a huge opportunity for ARM vendors. A chip like a Tegra 2 or Tegra 3 would make for quite a powerful STB. Consider that today’s high end smartphones have far more processing power, graphics power, and protocol support than pretty much any cable STB on the market. And MVPDs are increasingly looking to OTT features to enhance their services and attract and retain customers.

But I’m extrapolating a bit, certainly reading into some of the things that were said, or not said, in the videos. There are a lot of interesting points in the videos. The first is primarily about the cable business and the second discusses tablets and if MSOs might start offering tablets as a part of their service, just like leasing an STB.

Here are the videos, see what you think:

Back on October 28th, Google officially announced the update to Google TV. Good news for those who snapped up the Logitech Revue when the price was slashed to $99.99. Or maybe this is what you were waiting for to grab one yourself – or bundled with the web cam for $199.98. It is a very capable streaming STB and Google seems committed to it, even if it wasn’t a smashing success out of the gate. They did just add Google Music support to it as well.

The Google TV update bumps the platform to a base of Android 3.1 Honeycomb and brings a whole new UI which adopts a lot of the conventions from Honeycomb. It is much cleaner and simpler, and I think it is a needed improvement. There is a new TV & Movies app which helps users find content across all sources – TV or OTT. There is also a new YouTube application which greatly improves the experience. But, of course, the biggest, and most anticipated addition, is 3rd party app support via the Android Market. There are already a number of apps optimized for Google TV, with more to come. And general Android applications can run on Google TV as long as they don’t have HW needs it doesn’t support – such as a touchscreen, GPS, or telephony.

They released a short video highlighting the changes for those who already had Google TV:

They’ve also released several videos promoting the new Google TV in general, or highlighting specific features, such as Search or Photos:

They also did a Google+ Hangout Q&A with Google TV Product Manager Jurek Foryciarz and the video is available on YouTube, though embedding is disabled so you’ll have to watch it there. There is some interesting info in there, such as that they’re working on NDK support so more Android apps, especially games, will be able to run on Google TV. He also states that Google TV will be moving to Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich, which is something I’ve seen a lot of questions about around the net. If you’re interested in the future of Google TV it is really worth watching – or at least listening too since the video is just him talking.

You know, speaking of the Verizon version that I’m waiting for, we also got the official details on the differences between the LTE & HSPA+ variants. The LTE model is slightly thicker and heavier, with a tad more battery capacity. While the official specs list storage as 16GB, and it seems all the phones available currently are 16GB, it has been widely reported that a 32GB model is in the works. The official site used to say 16/32GB, though it now says just 16GB. Perhaps the 32GB version is still up in the air, or won’t be available at launch so they want to narrow the message. Given my history with my OG Droid, and how much of my content is in the cloud anyway, I could probably live with 16GB. But I’d still like to have 32GB, just in case.

Samsung has rather more detailed information on the HSPA+ version of the phone on sale in the UK. The US version of the page isn’t up yet since the phone hasn’t launched.

In many ways Google Music is closer to Amazon’s Cloud Drive and Cloud Player than iTunes. But Cloud Drive only offers 5GB of free storage, or up to around 1,000 songs. (Cloud Drive offers generic storage for photos, docs, etc. But Google already does that with Picasa and Docs.) Google gives users 20,000 free tracks. Though Amazon doesn’t count tracks purchased from their MP3 store against their storage limit, if you have a lot of tracks already it is a barrier to switching to their service. Currently 20,000 is a hard limit for Google Music, unlike Amazon they don’t offer paid options for more storage, but I expect that is something that will come.

You can purchase music via the web-based music store or from the newly updated Android Market on any Android device. Tracks are 320kbps MP3 files, the maximum quality for MP3. It should compare favorably to Amazon’s 256kbps MP3 bitrate and should hold its own against iTunes’ current 256kbps AAC bitrate.

Here’s a little intro video from Google:

Google has lined up quite the collection of music for the launch:

The store offers more than 13 million tracks from artists on Universal Music Group, Sony Music Entertainment, EMI, and the global independent rights agency Merlin as well as over 1,000 prominent independent labels including Merge Records, Warp Records, Matador Records, XL Recordings and Naxos. We’ve also partnered with the world’s largest digital distributors of independent music including IODA, INgrooves, The Orchard and Believe Digital.

13 million tracks is pretty good for a launch; Amazon claims around 17 million for their MP3 store, while iTunes has over 20 million worldwide. You might notice one hiccup in the rollout – they only have three of the four largest studios; Warner Music Group is a hold out. However, I’m confident Google will get them on board. With 200 million Android devices and 550,000 new devices being register every day, and most of those having built-in default access to the Android Market, and thus Google music, I think WMG will want a piece of that action. If and when Google gets WMG on board that should substantially increase their track count. I’m sure Google is pursuing additional deals with other distribution networks as well. Of course, in the meantime, you can purchase non-DRM tracks anywhere else and upload them to you Google Music locker.

Google has another hook too – sharing on Google+. Any track, or entire album, you purchase through Google Music can be shared on Google+, or via an email link for friends not on Google+. Everyone you share with gets one free listen. Hey kid, the first taste is free. So if you find a new track you love and want to share it, it is easy to do. And, of course, if your friends like it as much as you do, it is easy for them to make the purchase. Google Music is also offering free music. They have hundreds of free tracks, with new tracks each day.

Your tracks can be downloaded too, you don’t have to be connected to the cloud to play. Clearly that’d be an issue in situations when streaming just isn’t an option, the prime example being on a flight. For such situations you can sync tracks or playlists to your device for offline listening. That’s also useful for those worried about their data plan usage.

Note that I said Google is taking on iTunes in the subject, and I didn’t call this an “iTunes Killer”. The BLANK Killer is overdone. This is not going to kill iTunes, or Amazon MP3. I think this will siphon off some of their business, I’m already planning to move my new purchases to Google Music instead of iTunes when possible, but clearly Apple is safe with the iEcosystem. This is more about providing an Android alternative to the iTunes/iOS pairing than killing iTunes. Amazon probably has more to lose than Apple, since they’ve had their Amazon MP3 store on Android since the early days. But they have a lot of customer loyalty, not to mention the Kindle Fire has their MP3 store – but not the Android Market and Google Music.

If you’re an Android user, Google Music is worth checking out. Even if you don’t purchase your music there you can sync your music from other sources there for easy access.

But what if you’re an independent musician? How do you get a piece of the action? Google has you covered, with Artist Hub:

How does a $25 account setup fee and a 70/30 profit split sound? That’s 70% for you, the musician, and 30% for Google. With your Google Music account you get unlimited uploads – you can distribute as much of your music as you want. You can change the track or album descriptions as often as you like. Link your YouTube videos directly to the Google Music track for purchase. Setup a Google+ page and share tracks with your followers for a free taste – and they’ll have to buy the track to listen again. You can set your own pricing, offer promotions, create albums, set tracks as ‘album only’, etc. The artist has control, and all you need is a Google account and your music. And every artist or band gets their own dedicated page with bio, photo, links, etc.

Google is really trying to make it easy for artists to get their music out through Google Music.

All in all I think Google Music is off to a good start. It isn’t perfect, but I expect it to follow Google’s typical approach of iterative improvement and frequent updates. I definitely plan to use it.

Now that Google+ Pages are available I’ve created one for Gizmo Lovers, joining the Facebook page and Twitter Feed. I also added a quick link to the page in the navigation column to the right. There don’t appear to be any WordPress plugins for auto-posting new content into G+. (There are a few for pulling content from G+ into WordPress.) That’s not surprising considering it just launched and it doesn’t look like Google has published a posting API yet, so I’ll be manually posting links there for now. For the past few days I’ve been sharing Gizmo Lovers posts on my personal G+ profile, but now that Gizmo Lovers has its own page I will no longer be doing so. This is the last one I’ll share there.

If you want to create your own G+ Page, hit up plus.google.com/pages/create.

They also launched Direct Connect, which allows users to add entities to their G+ Circles directly from Google search results when they prepend a ‘+’ to the search term. So instead of searching on ‘Pepsi’ and getting the usual results, seach on ‘+Pepsi’ and it takes you directly to the Pepsi G+ Page. And they released a quick video on that as well:

You have to satisfy some secret formula for Google to deign you worthy of Direct Connect, so it only works for select pages currently.

But that changed tonight as they opened up G+ to GApps users. So I’ve gone ahead and signed up and took a first pass at fleshing out my profile. The lack of ‘vanity’ URLs reminds me of the bad old days of Facebook, which is not a good thing. I hope they come to their senses on that one.

Otherwise so far it seems OK, but I have to say I’m not blown away or anything. I don’t see a way to auto-feed Twitter into G+ for status updates, which is what I do on FB, and I don’t see myself switching to G+ clients for that. I was also surprised that YouTube has auto-sharing features for every other type of linked account they support, but not Google+. First impressions are that Google+ is less ‘open’ than FB. It seems to want to force you to do all of your updates and post content within its confines, while FB is happy to suck in activities from other sites like Twitter, YouTube, etc.

On the other hand the interface is, and I expect from Google, very clean and crisp. Not a lot of random crap splashed all over, a problem that has only been worsening on Facebook with their recent updates. The ‘Circles’ system of grouping people is pretty easy to understand and the privacy controls seen fairly straight forward. It seems to be missing some of the things I turn to FB for, like fan pages, community pages, etc. And no, Hangouts aren’t the same. The pages I spend most of my time using on FB are for companies like TiVo or communities of users. Not individuals. So I want to see that on G+. And when they’re available I’ll look to create one for Gizmo Loves, just as I did for Facebook.

The big question is, of course, if, or maybe I should say when, Google will suspend my account because of my name. They have a history of suspending accounts of monoymous users, due to their utterly idiotic ‘real names’ policy, so I fully expect them to waste my time proving I am who I claim to be too. I could rant for pages about the stupidity of their name policy, but plenty of others have already done so. I’ll try to to be brief.

I’ve been online since 1989. I’ve seen countless people using apparent ‘real names’ acting like complete jackasses. Using real names does not mean good behavior. In fact, there is already a growing problem with G+ users jumping into open Hangouts and trolling. And the accounts have names that look as ‘real’ as any others.

That highlights a key point that I’ve seen so many who support the policy miss. Google is not enforcing the use of real names. Not in the least. They are enforcing the use of real looking names. Of course, what looks real to them is a very narrow definition. Basically a European style first & last name with little to no cultural flexibility. Come from a culture where mononyms are common? Or where it is common to render your name in two character sets? Or have a name that sounds ‘funny’ to the Western ear? Or just have an unusual name? Be ready to have your account suspended and to be guilty until proven innocent.

And there have even been cases of people being told their legal name is unacceptable under the policy. Now that’s utter bullshit. Especially when any yahoo can pick a name out of the phone book. Want to be James Tucker? Or Brian Jones? Go ahead, it doesn’t matter if that’s your name or not. It looks real and there’s next to no chance you’ll get caught. And that’s what the trolls are doing now, creating disposable accounts with real looking names. A troll is a troll by any other name.

But the whole shtick about the policy being to encourage good behavior is a smokescreen anyway. It is really all about marketing. Google wants you to use a real name because they want to be able to compile a dossier and link it with other information sources to better target you with marketing and to productize you for marketers. Personally I don’t have a problem with them wanting to do that, that’s really what Google’s business is. Everything else, including search, is designed to feed that business. But the way they’re going about it is ham fisted and flawed.

There are many legitimate reasons to use a pseudonym online. It should be a choice. When you get down to it a nickname is a pseudonym. How many of you go by some variation of your legal name in daily life? If you go by Liz but were told you had to go by Elizabeth, would that bother you? Prefer your middle name over your legal first name? Too bad. No more Chip, you’re Charles now. OK, I’m going to stop before I do write pages. But check out My Name Is Me.

So, anyone want to start a betting pool on how long it’ll take Google to suspend my account? Remember, my legal name is just MegaZone.

View Albula-Bernina Line in a larger map

I’ve been waiting for this phone to launch, since I’m still using my OG Droid which I picked up at launch in November 2009. I rooted it and I’m running Cyanogenmod 7.1, but I’m still eager to get something newer. I’ve been holding out for the G-Nex to make the jump to ICS on an a Verizon LTE device. It looks like the G-Nex will hit Verizon in November, so I’ll probably be upgrading – unless something else pops up that is just more tempting. But I doubt it.

Skimming around the net after today’s announcement, Android Central compiled the stats in a nice format:

• Network: HSPA+ 21Mbps/HSUPA 5.76Mbps 850/900/1900/1700/2100, EDGE/GPRS 850/900/1800/1900
  Specifications above may differ on the LTE version.
• Processor: 1.2 GHz Dual-core Processor (OMAP 4460)
• Display: 4.65-inch 1280×720 HD Super AMOLED
• OS: Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich
• Main (Rear) Camera: 5MP AF with LED Flash with zero shutter lag and fast shot2shot
• Sub (Front) Camera: 1.3MP for Video Call
• Sensor: Accelerometer, Compass, Gyro, Light, Proximity, Barometer
• Memory: 1GB RAM + 16/32GB Internal memory
• Size: 135.5 x 67.94 x 8.94 mm, 135g
• Battery: Standard battery, Li-on 1750 mAh.

The Official Google Blog covered the launch of both ICS & the G-Nex, along with a video:

ICS is the one platform to rule them all. Android 2.3.x Gingerbread is optimized for phones and Android 3.x Honeycomb is optimized for tablets. But Android 4.0 ICS is designed for both phones and tablets. It evolves the Honeycomb UI to the next level, and introduces new features. While the G-Nex is a major product, the real news is ICS as it will be coming to a number of current and upcoming phones and tablets, and it really takes Android to the next level in UI polish, speed, and features.

UPDATE: The full video of the launch event has been posted.

The real loser continues to be RIM and the catch-all ‘Other’ which would cover Windows Mobile, Windows Phone, WebOS, Symbian, etc. While 18% of all smartphone users use a Blackberry, and 11% use one of the other platforms, in the past three months only 9% of new smartphone sales have been Blackberrys and only 6% are other platforms, which are pretty much Windows Phone 7 and WebOS in today’s market.

Also significant, the smartphone user base continues to grow. While only 43% of US cellular subscribers have a smartphone, in the past three months 56% of new activations were smartphones instead of feature phones or basic models. These figures are even more significant in that the three month recent subscribers numbers are a fairly reliable predictor of the market as a whole. The share of recent adoptions using smartphones historically leads the market share as a whole by around 15%. So the pool of smartphone users in the US is showing healthy growth.

The pie is getting bigger, and iPhone and Android are taking the lions share of it. Heading into the fall and the holiday buying season things look good for iPhone (especially if the iPhone 5 launches), positively great for Android, and pretty much abysmal for everyone else. RIM needs to pull a rabbit out of their hat soon, and Blackberry OS 7 sure isn’t it. As corporate IT departments increasingly offer a choice of Blackberry, iPhone, or Android devices, instead of mandating Blackberry, RIM’s traditional stronghold is crumbling.

Via Nielsen Wire.

Lifted right from their post:

• Aardvark: Aardvark was a start-up we acquired in 2010. An experiment in a new kind of social search, it helped people answer each other’s questions. While Aardvark will be closing, we’ll continue to work on tools that enable people to connect and discover richer knowledge about the world.
• Desktop: In the last few years, there’s been a huge shift from local to cloud-based storage and computing, as well as the integration of search and gadget functionality into most modern operating systems. People now have instant access to their data, whether online or offline. As this was the goal of Google Desktop, the product will be discontinued on September 14, including all the associated APIs, services, plugins, gadgets and support.
• Fast Flip: Fast Flip was started to help pioneer news content browsing and reading experiences for the web and mobile devices. For the past two years, in collaboration with publishers, the Fast Flip experiment has fueled a new approach to faster, richer content display on the web. This approach will live on in our other display and delivery tools.
• Google Maps API for Flash: The Google Maps API for Flash was launched to provide ActionScript developers a way to integrate Google Maps into their applications. Although we’re deprecating the API, we’ll keep supporting existing Google Maps API Premier customers using the Google Maps API for Flash and we’ll focus our attention on the JavaScript Maps API v3 going forward.
• Google Pack: Due to the rapidly decreasing demand for downloadable software in favor of web apps, we will discontinue Google Pack today. People will still be able to access Google’s and our partners’ software quickly and easily through direct links on the Google Pack website.
• Google Web Security: Google Web Security came to Google as part of the Postini acquisition in 2007, and since then we’ve integrated much of the web security functionality directly into existing Google products, such as safe browsing in Chrome. Although our previous sales channel will be discontinued, we’ll continue to support our existing customers.
• Image Labeler: We began Google Image Labeler as a fun game to help people explore and label the images on the web. Although it will be discontinued, a wide variety of online games from Google are still available.
• Notebook: Google Notebook enabled people to combine clipped URLs from the web and free-form notes into documents they could share and publish. We’ll be shutting down Google Notebook in the coming months, but we’ll automatically export all notebook data to Google Docs.
• Sidewiki: Over the past few years, we’ve seen extraordinary innovation in terms of making the web collaborative. So we’ve decided to discontinue Sidewiki and focus instead on our broader social initiatives. Sidewiki authors will be given more details about this closure in the weeks ahead, and they’ll have a number of months to download their content.
• Subscribed Links: Subscribed Links enabled developers to create specialized search results that were added to the normal Google search results on relevant queries for subscribed users. Although we’ll be discontinuing Subscribed Links, developers will be able to access and download their data until September 15, at which point subscribed links will no longer appear in people’s search results.

Aardvark is the one I’ll miss the most, because it is the one I used the most. I asked a couple of questions, but I’ve mainly been answering other users’ questions since the very early days of the service. I don’t know, I kind of get a kick out of having random questions pop up in Google talk. Looking at my history I answered my first question on July 6, 2009 and my most recent, number 443, on August 22, 2011. Coincidentally they both involved TiVo. I could see something like this getting built into Google+, asking your circles for answers, etc.

Google Desktop I still have installed, but I haven’t really used it in ages. I installed it mainly out of habit. I have to agree with Google, with most of my work in the cloud I just don’t really need the features of Desktop.

Fast Flip… I never got this. Did anyone really use this?

Google Maps API for Flash – I’m not sure I’ve encountered a Flash app that used it, and I’m not a Flash developer, so I don’t care.

Google Pack is something else I still have installed. But I won’t miss it. I use Google Pack just because it makes installing a few apps on a new machine easier. I have Skype, RealPlayer, Adobe Reader, Google Picasa, Google Chrome, and Google Earth. I don’t use the Pack version of Google Apps because they’re actually the Gmail versions. Since I use the full, hosted Google Apps I use the special versions downloaded from there. Losing Pack just means a little more work when first installing these apps on a new box, no big deal.

Google Web Security has been spread around into other products, so it isn’t really a loss. Having the features transparently embedded elsewhere is better.

Image Labeler – I’d never even heard of this before now.

Notebook – I vaguely remember hearing of this, but I never used it.

Sidewiki – This I still have installed, but it is more force of habit. It was something that I thought was kind of curious when it launched, and I played with it for a bit, but it never caught on. It felt like a waste writing notes when it seemed like no one else was using it, and since no one else was using it there were rarely other notes to read. I expect to see more commenting hooks into Google+ that will probably catch on more than Sidewiki ever did.

Subscribed Links is something else I’d heard of, but never used myself, so I won’t miss it.

I can’t argue with Google phasing out these products and services and putting the resources into more important products, or into new ideas. I’m glad Google takes risks with projects like these, trying new things to see what sticks. If something is successful it gets beefed up into a more complete product. If it is partially successful then the pieces that work get recycled into other projects. And if it just doesn’t catch on enough to justify continued effort, then it is a learning experience. Google doesn’t need everything to be a smash hit, but they need to keep trying things because no one can say what the next smash hit product will be.

So what do you think about the cuts? Leave a comment!