Google Assistant will be voice-controlled, just like Siri, but is expected to be more goal oriented.

While Google has not yet made any official announcement about the product, sources at TechCrunch reveal that Google has been working on this product for a long time.

It is believed that Google will keep control of this service at all levels, unlike Siri, which refers to third-party information sources for certain user requests.

Google’s Android team is said to be working on this project. The project is currently supposed to be at the stage where they have to convert all information into a language that the computer will understand.

Sources claim that Google Assistant will be more of a “Do Engine” rather than a service that focuses on just the search. Google is expected to launch this product in the last quarter of the year.

Recent versions of Android already have a pretty strong voice-based range of services, which include voice-to-text input, voice search and basic voice activated commands such as “call”, “send text”, “navigate to”, “go to” [a website] and [show a] “map of”.

Android’s existing range of voice-activated controls don’t quite match up to the breadth of Apple’s Siri. Furthermore, if Google wishes to make the same range of controls available on interfaces other than mobile, such as tablet and TV, it would need to drastically increase the range of commands it can accept. This is especially important if rumours of an imminent Apple TV launch are true.

A new report by comScore provides details about the current trends in usage of mobile phones and other Internet-connected devices across the United States, France, Germany, Italy, Spain, United Kingdom, Japan, and Canada..

The report indicates that mobiles have done exceedingly well in 2011. Not only has the usage of smartphones increased substantially, but also tablet devices are becoming increasingly popular.

This trend is expected to continue through 2012, according to Mark Donovan, comScore Senior Vice President of Mobile. He says, “As mobile channels present a more personal, social, and ubiquitous experience to consumers, advertisers and publishers have an opportunity to better engage target audiences, given an understanding of how to connect and leverage the unique characteristics of these emerging platforms.”

56.6% of UK users access the mobile Web. This is the highest in the West, but is far behind in comparison to Japan, where over 76% of mobile users access the Web. 42% of users in U.S.A. and 40-50% of users in the 4 main EU countries use smartphones to access the mobile Web.

Google’s Android OS and Apple’s iOS are the leaders in most markets, with Android leading with nearly 50% market share. However, Apple’s iPhone is clearly the most popular single device across all markets.

Mobile apps are being increasingly used to access information on subjects like health, retail, auctions and electronic payments. Shopping behaviour is also being affected as more shoppers use mobile devices to research a product, while they are actually in a store.

In Europe, 38.2 of the total mobile audience accessed mobile media via applications, up 10.1 percentage points, while 38.1 percent used their browser, up 9.2 points.

Smartphones continue to be increasingly used to access social networks. Almost half of the smartphone owners surveyed in the report use their mobile to access social networks everyday. About half of these users also read posts from brands, organisations, and events.

Tablets are rapidly gaining in importance. While mobile phones took about 7 years to reach the 40 million mark in the USA, tablets have reached the same level in less than 2 years. Nearly 15% of mobile users had tablets by the end of 2011. A lot of the recent growth in the market is fuelled by Android devices.

Rise of Tablets in the U.S.A. among unique mobile users in aged 13+

For marketers and brand owners, this means a further diversification of the media they need to target, but it also brings with it the possibility of richer, better advertising options, as we’ve already seen through Google’s recent launch of tablet-specific ad formats.

The very first thing users will notice about the Facebook app is that it looks and functions a lot more like the website. Notifications are immediately visible and layers are used to provide instant views of friend requests, messages and notifications.

Facebook’s old Android app was notoriously slow, had multiple screens each of which took long to load even for simple functions and did not have a very intuitive interface. Even something as fundamental as viewing pictures and commenting on them was hidden and required users to know exactly where to touch to show the comment option.

It is now much quicker and easier for users to share photos, and messages as well as to navigate. According to a post on the Facebook blog, with this new app, photos and albums will be twice as fast as before. It will also be easier for users to edit their captions and view comments, both of which were tricky features to use in the old app.

Messages and notifications will now be placed at the top of the page, so users will be able to access them and respond tot hem without leaving the page.

Similarly, a new menu button on the top left corner of the app drops down a menu that enables users to access their news feeds, groups, games and apps with a single click, instead of having to leave the news stream and then go to the main menu.

These new features are for Android 1.8 and require Android 1.5 or later versions. The app continues to be available for free on the Android Market and still does not feature any Facebook ads.

Mobile Ads En Route?

Given that over 350 million active users (43% of Facebook’s total user base) currently access Facebook through their mobile devices, the platform is extremely important for the social network. It is no wonder then, that they would strive to make the user experience as good as it is on desktops.

It will also be no surprise when they do start monetising the medium and launch a mobile advertising service.

Google will synchronise the music to a Google Music library in such a way that the playlist will remain the same on all devices, be it a laptop, mobile phone or tablet. Each user will be able to store upto 20,000 songs for free, but they will have to be manually uploaded.

Music can also be purchased from a music store in the Android Market. Over 13 million tracks from the big music companies like Sony, EMI and Universal will be available to buy, in addition to tracks from several independent labels.

Google Music on an Android mobile

Individual artists who have the necessary permissions will also be able to upload their music and build their own artist page through the artist hub interface.

This service will obviously compete with Apple’s iTunes. The cost of each track on Google Music will be the same as that on iTunes, ranging between $0.69 and $1.29. However, the cloud computing service by Google will be free, whereas Apple charges $25 for it.

While Google may not generate a lot of revenue through this service, it will help them build customer loyalty to Android-based mobile phones. Once a user has purchased music from a particular service like Apple or Google, they are unlikely to switch to another device.

The service will provide some music for free everyday, and those tracks will be displayed in the music library. Amazon also offers free tracks daily, but the service is rather complicated.

Google Music has already been integrated into Google+ and that will make it more popular as it can now be shared with friends. Social aspects of Google Music could be the main driver of its success, as it could potentially out-shine popular services such as Spotify and Last.fm primarily due to its larger user base.

Reviews of the service are lukewarm. A lot of the criticism focuses on the fact that the service has been released 8 years later than iTunes. The service also requires users to upload each and every song they wish to store and can create problems when users upload old iTunes tracks that had DRM encryption.

The biggest plus points in favour of Google Music are the price – free! – and the true portability of the service – it can be played on any device, incuding iPhones and iPads.

Most industry experts, though, recognise the Google Music service for what it is – a suitable replacement for the iTunes eco-system for Android devices and a means to complete and tether the Android user experience.

The study, based on data from AdMarvel Open Audience Network, uses information collected from users of the Opera Mini mobile web browser. It compares the habits of Android users with the habits of iPhone users, Windows Phone users, Blackberry users as well as users of other feature phones.

It was found that Windows Phone users were the most likely to visit email and communications sites – even more than Blackberry users. This would go on to suggest that similar to Blackberry device, Windows Phones were popular with the business community. These users were also most frequent visitors to news & information, politics and business & finance sites.

Users of the Android OS were likely to be the most educated. This suggestion is based on the fact that Android users are the largest group in the Education category, which includes websites for universities and general education.

iPhone users were found to be least likely to view music, video and media sites, whereas Android users were most likely to visit sites in that category.

It was also seen that Android users are the least likely to visit social networks from their browser – presumably preferring to use free apps to access the social networks.

Percentage of users exceeding the average use

Reports from Asian technology blog, Penn Olson state that for the past 5 days, Gmail services are being affected on Android handsets. The Android Market has also been intermittently inaccessible during the same period.

While the Gmail website is working as normal in China, both the Gmail app for Android and the Android Market have completely stopped working in the country. The website Blocked In China confirms that the Android Market is inaccessible on both Android devices and via the wired Web.

Android Market shows as “Blocked” in China

Gmail was the battleground where Google’s exit from China was decided. It comes as no surprise, then, that the service should also be blocked on mobile phones. What is surprising is the fact that it took Chinese authorities so long to make this decision.

Google Plus, on the other hand, was blocked hardly a week after it was launched in China, and remains that way since.

If the sequence of events repeat themselves, Google might find itself exiting the Chinese Mobile market as well, which could be yet another major blow to the company’s East Asian operations.

The study takes into consideration various devices such as tablets, e-readers, and other portable connected devices. The study concentrated on user demographics, features of the devices being used and shipment details. Retailing strategies being used by the manufacturers and marketers as well as pricing tactics were also studied.

Mobiles, smartphones and tablets are expected to be the fastest growing devices in the near future. This assessment has been further strengthened by the recent announcement from Microsoft stating that their Windows 8 OS will be orientated towards mobiles and tablets. Microsoft have also said that their Office suite will add to the attraction of tablets within the enterprise space.

Analysts at Juniper estimate that the number of tablet devices being shipped out will touch 253 million by 2016. This is a huge jump compared to the number of such devices expected to ship this year, which is just around 55.2 million.

Juniper’s numbers match other forecasts by Gartner and DisplaySearch quite closely. Numbers for this year were forecast to be around 50 million, but have now been revised up a bit, which further reinforces these steep growth expectations.

It is also believed that by 2016, more than half the number of tablet devices will have Wi-Fi as well as cellular connections. At present, most of these devices only include Wi-Fi connectivity.

Currently, customers are required to have separate connections for their mobile phones and for the tablet. This situation is expected to change in due course and could also influence the growth in usage of tablets.

Motorola Mobility will however be run as a separate business by Google. It will function as a licensee of Android and the Android OS will continue to remain an open source.

Motorola had been one of the founding members of the Open Handset Alliance, and by 2008 had eventually made Android its sole operating system for all their smartphone devices.

While the handset manufacturing division of Motorola has not been doing too well for some time, it could be their vast collection of patents that attracted Google to buy the company.

Motorola has already got 17,000 patents, while another 7,500 patents are pending.

Google on the other hand is on the lookout for patents in order to compete with Microsoft, RIM and others.

A note on the Google Blog said, “Motorola’s total commitment to Android in mobile devices is one of many reasons that there is a natural fit between our two companies.

Google CEO Larry Page and Google’s senior VP of mobile Andy Rubin have both confirmed that the primary reason for buying over Motorola mobility is to get hold of their patents to strengthen Android.

Andy Rubin has also stated that the deal would in no way be a disadvantage to Google’s over 50 other partners.

Google will be paying $12.5 billion for this deal. The deal is subject to regulatory approval from various bodies in the US, the European Union and other jurisdictions, and the approval of Motorola Mobility’s stock holders.

Microsoft, Apple and Oracle have come together to buy old patents of Nortel. Having done that, they are now asking manufacturers to pay a fee of $15 for every Android system they wish to use on their mobile devices. This fee makes it more expensive for phone manufacturers to use the Android apps in their phones, compared to the Windows Phone 7.

Google’s official blog claims that the imposition of this “tax” for these dubious patents is a means of fighting Google through litigation rather than competing by developing their own patent-worthy technology.

The U.S. Department of Justice should ask Microsoft and its partners to license the said patents at a reasonable price as it does not approve of the acquisition of patents as an anti-competitive tool.

In the meantime, Microsoft has responded to this allegation, saying that Google had also been invited to bid jointly for these patents, but had refused.

Google, in turn, replied saying that joining the group would have eliminated any protection these patents could offer to Android against attacks from Microsoft and its bidding partners, thus making sure that they were unable to assert themselves against these patents. It would also mean that Google would end up paying for something that would actually hamper the growth of their platform.

Microsoft has further said that Google refused to join the other companies because it wanted to buy these mobile patents for itself, to assert against others. Clearly, the last word on this issue is yet to come, but in the meantime, it will be the end users who suffer as they will end up paying heavily for the use of the patents.

The number of smartphones sold worldwide in 2010 was 302 million. According to the prediction, 1 billion smartphones will be sold annually by the year 2016.

The prices of these handsets are set to fall gradually with time, and this is what will fuel the growth of smartphones. Economy model handsets, which cost below $150 (unsubsidised rate) are likely to be the most in demand, and this segment will account for a third of the total smartphones being shipped out.

Smartphone prices forecast for 2016

The competition between handset manufacturers and suppliers will also lead to these gadgets being available at very reasonable rates, further enhancing the demand for them.

The report also predicts that many users in the developed markets will be inclined to switch from feature phones to smartphones, but they would expect to pay the price of feature phones only.

On the other hand a low price point will be essential in the developing markets as well, because the consumers in general have a lower spending power and operator subsidies are also fewer.

The increased availability of open source operating systems such as Android along with falling costs of key components for manufacture will help lower the cost of smartphones.

The report also predicts that the demand for standard smartphones costing between $151 – $399 will remain intact, as also the demand for premium or high end phones that cost above $400. This demand will be fuelled by the increased availability of new technologies such as NFC, 3D and Biometrics.

These new high-end smartphones will also be capable of morphing into other devices such as Tablets and Notebooks.

A study conducted by the Language, Interaction and Computation Laboratory at the University of Trento in Italy looked at the daily patterns of life in Twitter messages (tweets), and was presented on Tweetolife.com via graphs highlighting the differences in the contents of tweets according to the gender of the users and time of the day.

The said study was conducted between November 2009 and February 2010. Over 1 million tweets were taken into consideration while carrying out the study. The tweets were then classified into two sections male and female, based on the first name of the user.

When the tweets were analysed to find out which words or phrases were used more frequently by males and which were used more frequently by females, the analysts found some interesting trends.

Both men and women talked equally about marriage, but women spoke a bit more about divorce. Dinner and movies were other topics that were discussed more by women than by men. Of these two subjects, men spoke about movies more than they did about dinner.

Surprisingly, it was the women who also spoke much more about love and sex than the men. The number of women who spoke about love was higher than the number of women who spoke about sex.

Not surprisingly, the topics that men spoke about more than women were found to be football and money, and if percentages are anything to go by, it seems men are more interested in football than in money!

Where it comes to technology, men were almost always found to be much more enthusiastic about it. Topics such as ipad, iphone, android and tablet pcs were all tweeted by far more men than women. Women, however, did seem more keen on the iPod than men.

Search engines are also talked about a lot more by men than by women. However, women do seem to tweet more about Yahoo! than they do about Google or Microsoft.

Facebook, Twitter and MySpace have seen almost equal adoption by both sexes, which is reflected in the almost equal numbers of tweets about each of these networks by both men and women. Not surprisingly, Digg is much more tweeted about by men, as it does seem to cater much more to men than women.

On the humourous side, tweets about Justin Bieber seem to peak round the time teenagers come out of school up till the time they go to bed.

When are most tweets about Justing Bieber posted?

While these figures might seem mildly interesting or amusing, they actually could help marketers decide how and where to target audiences based on interest and demographics.

A survey conducted by Greystripe the brand focused mobile ad network has recently revealed that two thirds of moms are using their smartphones to help them with their shopping.

The survey was conducted by them over a period of three months between November 2010 and February 2011 across 239 women with children. It has shown that 66% of the women surveyed made use of their smartphones while shopping.

• The commonest use of the smartphone was to locate the nearest store in the area. 45% of the women did this.
• 36% of the women used their smartphones to compare prices of commodities in different stores.
• 31% of the women used their phones for new product research.

Apart from this, women also used their smartphones to save money by downloading coupons through their Android or iPhones. The phones were also commonly used for shopping lists and to look up new recipes.

Dane Holewinski, director of marketing at Greystripe said “The majority of moms with smartphones are using those devices for their day-to-day tasks especially shopping, making them the ideal target for advertisers.”

Similar surveys carried out by others have shown somewhat conflicting results. A mobile shopping survey across 1600 women last year showed that 94% of them were interested in mobile shopping and mobile marketing.

During the same time frame a survey conducted by SheSpeaks found that only 10% of women had downloaded any apps related to shopping and 62% were not even interested in doing so.

In fact, studies conducted recently have indicated, that not only a large number of users already use smartphones, but a sizable portion of the rest plan to start using one within the next 3-6 months.

Several mobile operators have also announced that they intend to launch app stores in the near future. This will make it easier for users to download the apps they want.

Some of the popular manufacturers such as Apple, Google, Microsoft, Nokia, Blackberry already have their own app stores. As would be expected, Apple’s iOS and Google’s Android OS are the most popular among the users of smartphones.

Not only do users of iOS and Android OS download more apps, they also use each of these apps more frequently than users of other smartphones.

It has been found that users of Apple’s iPhone have an average of 48 apps, while Android OS users have 35 apps and Blackberry RIM users have 15 apps on their handsets. Additionally, 68% of iPhone users and 60% of Android users access their apps frequently everyday, while only 45% of RIM users do so.

In order to improve their odds, other manufacturers must keep in mind that they need to encourage their developers to come up with good apps, by keeping the process of app certification simple, as well as providing them with transparent revenue sharing systems as incentive.

Developers on the other hand, should keep in mind that a good app is one, which is not just interesting at first glance, but continues to hold ones interest and provides some valuable service or facility.

Android developers will now be able to publish their apps on the Android market with the ability for users to purchase them directly when they wish to do so.

While this facility will give users the ability to try-and-buy the app and also get upgrades when required, developers will be able to better monetise their apps.

A good number of apps are already available with the In-app Billing facility. Some of them are Tap Tap Revenge by Disney Mobile, Comics by Comixology and WSOP3 by Glu Mobile.

Google had first announced this In-app Billing facility in January at the Inside Mobile conference in San Francisco and had allowed users to start developing and testing these apps. To begin with, developers will have to fill out a detailed documentation form and will then be provided with a sample app to demonstrate how the feature works.

It will be imperative for users to follow the prescribed security guidelines, in order to prevent the inadvertent purchase of unwanted apps and also to prevent misuse of the facility by miscreants, as this could result in excess billing.

In-app purchasing facilities have been available through Apple’s App Store and Blackberry’s App World for quite some time now.

If this deal, reported by the Wall Street Journal, is finalised, Google will provide retailers with data about their users, which the retailer can then use to target specific ads and special offers to users in their vicinity.

In addition to being extremely beneficial to users and retailers, thereby driving adoption of Android mobile phones, this service will help Google earn more through ad revenue.

Holders of debit and credit cards from Citigroup and Mastercard will be allowed to activate a mobile payment application on their Android 2.3 phones. This will eliminate the need to carry separate debit and credit cards.

Google will be able to manage the credit card accounts as well as track the spending habits of the customer, through a special application.

Verifone Systems, a company that makes card readers, will make the contact-less devices required for this purpose. This system will function on near field communication (NFC) technology, much like the mobile payment system Orange plan to launch in the UK.

The near field communications technology used in these devices is far more sophisticated than the magnetic strip in the traditional debit or credit card and hence it will be safer to use.

Expected to be launched some time this year, this new service is expected to face competition from Apple and Blackberry, who will also soon make use of similar technology in collaboration with other credit card companies and financial institutions.

Google will, however, have to ensure that they do not upset the advocates of user privacy when they provide user data to retailers in their efforts to drive more ad revenue.

Grindr is the largest all-male location based social networking app and was first launched about 2 years ago.

The app already has about 1.5 million users spread across 180 countries. Of this, about 56,000 are in the New York area itself and around 3,000 new users are joining the service every day. The average user spends about 1.3 hours on this app daily.

Grindr has been available on the iPhone, iPod touch, iPad for some time and was launched on Blackberry handsets recently. Now, Android users will be able to interact with users on the aforementioned devices. They will be able to view profiles and photos and also chat with each other.

New Android users will also get a a free trial run of Grindr Xtra for 7 days after they download and run the app for the first time. Grindr Xtra is 100% ad free, thus giving the user more browsing space, and users will be able to view up to 200 men in their area. They will also be able to add 50 favourites. Users will receive notifications even when Grindr is running in the background. To view multiple profiles the user just needs to swipe back and forth. The monthly cost of the service is $4.97, which is lower than most other dating services.

Compared to other dating service, gay or straight, Grindr is definitely far ahead of the pack. The service was built specifically for mobiles, which means that it is built to facilitate interaction between users on the go, who are typing on a small screen. The simplicity of the app is its greatest asset, and is likely to steer its growth further.

A report by DisplaySearch expects that by 2014, the number of computers sold will be 500 million and one-third of these are expected to be tablet devices.

While there were only about 2 million tablets in 2009 and about 20 million tablets last year, there will be 202 million tablets by 2015 according to iHS iSuppli.

Apple’s iPad continues to hold the largest market share among tablets. However, Android-based tablets are also growing in popularity according to Strategy Analytics. During the last quarter of 2010 22% of tablets sold were running on Android OS. While Apple held 95% of the market share during the third quarter of 2010, it held only 75% of the market share in the last quarter.

Tablet sales 2009 – forecast 2015. Data source: Gartner and iSuppli

Among the Android-based tablets, the Samsung Galaxy Tab was the most popular. Android-based tablets are growing in popularity not only because of their relatively lower cost but also because of accompanying features such as YouTube and Google Maps. The planned launch of the Android 3.0 for tablets is expected to further boost the sale of Android tablets.

The entry of other companies such as Dell, Hewlett Packard and Research In Motion, in the tablet market will also further boost the growth of the tablet market.

This is certainly good news for the industry, as it means that music downloads to mobile handsets are expected to more than double in value within the next 5 years, from $2.4 billion in 2010.

The music industry had been going through a very lean phase for the last several years due to the rampant prevalence of online piracy. After the introduction of P2P file sharing, people tended to avoid buying records and CDs from the market, and just downloaded the music illegally.

In order to fight this piracy, companies like Apple introduced iTunes in 2003. People could now easily and legally download the music in the form of ring tones, ring back tones, full track services and music videos by paying for it.

While PCs with MP3 players were earlier required to download the music, the recent technological advances made by the handset industry have now made mobiles the most popular tools to download music.

In fact, according to the Juniper report, the sales of the iPhone will soon exceed that of the iPod because of this. Google has also gone into the mobile music business with the intention of making their Android OS more popular than Apple’s iOS.

Whether this saves the music industry as we know it, or seeds a revolution where record labels become obsolete or have to redefine their business model in order to effective monetise music downloads by consumers without worrying about piracy eating into their revenues remains to be seen.

Blaise Aguera y Arcas of Bing Maps and Mobile said in an interview with Forbes, “The model of apps for everything is broken in a very fundamental way, a lot like the way the web was before there was a good search engine.” In the old days, people used to type the web address in the URL bar. Even now, this helps in deciding which app to use.

According to Arcas, some of the apps will become “baked-in” default options, depending on the circumstances and the search engine may also suggest some apps. Microsoft has previously talked about doing this by making use of the phone’s sensors such as its camera and location detection mechanism in order to anticipate some of the user’s queries and requirements in advance.

The success of the iPhone and Android have led to the availability of over 3,00,000 apps for mobile devices. To get ahead in this race, Microsoft will have to streamline the process of finding and using apps and make many of them a part of the Windows mobile operating system.

Windows Phone 7 already has 30,000 drivers, which is a good thing as far as providing options is concerned, but it slows down the speed with which the apps are available. Microsoft will, therefore, have to decide how best they can combine reliability with speed in order to improve usability.

As with search, Microsoft might be entering the market too late, with little new technology to make a significant impact. Microsoft’s mobile operating system has a fairly low market share of just 2%, compared to 8% for Google’s Android. The software giant would need to develop some really ground-breaking technology to break the current trend and make significant gains in the mobile market.

When the Nexus One and the Nexus S were first launched, they provided users with the ability to ‘Sync Friends with Contacts’. In other words, when Nexus handset users downloaded the Facebook App, the details of their Facebook friends, including their phone numbers (where available) were stored in the Google address book.

A user’s contacts from Google as well as from Facebook were, therefore, very well amalgamated with each other, making it is easy for users to access their friends’ details whenever they wanted to.

Now, Google has decided to discontinue this feature from the Nexus S. Once this sync feature is removed, Facebook contacts will be visible in the Facebook App but will not be integrated with the Android Contacts App.

Another strange aspect to this move is the fact that the sync feature will continue to exist on the Nexus One handsets, because, according to a Google spokesperson, “the Nexus One was preinstalled with Facebook”, so users would expect the integration of the two apps, which is not the case with the Nexus S. Google has also clarified that the sync feature will not be available on any future devices they launch.

The main grouse that Google has with Facebook is the lack of portability. While Facebook allows the import of data, it does not allow export, thus making the interaction with other sites a one-way deal. In other words, the availability of contact information from Facebook relies entirely on the connection between the two contacts, and could be lost from the Google Contacts App when a user breaks a social connection on Facebook.

While this is an internal problem between Google and Facebook, and should have been sorted out professionally by the two organisations, it is the users who will miss out on the convenience of having their mobile and social apps interconnecting.

The reasoning that Google has offered for this discontinuation is quite strange. They say, that if a user ever decides to quit Facebook, he will lose all this data. So they have decided to discontinue it before a user gets too used to it. They quite forget that ‘if’ a user chooses to quit Facebook, he can make alternative arrangements to save his data before hand.

It now remains to be seen how Facebook will react to this move.

According to comScore’s report, 2010 US Digital Year in Review, new and highly advanced mobile handsets were introduced along with new mobile content options and applications. The use of smart phones and the 3G spectrum increased significantly and the use of browsers and applications through mobile handsets went up by 7.6 percentage points between December 2009 and 2010 as a result of this.

The availability of new data plans with 3G and 4G services have also furthered the growth of the mobile industry. 29% of mobile subscribers now have unlimited data plans compared to 21.7% last year. This, coupled with the introduction of handsets such as the iPhone 4, Windows Phone 7 and RIM Blackberry Torch has caused the usage of smart phones to reach an all-time high of 27% of all mobile handsets.

While RIM remains number 1 with a 31.6% share of the smartphone operating system market, Google’s Android OS has become the second largest, with 28.7% of the market largely due to large-scale adoption of Google Android powered devices.

Samsung was the most popular handset manufacturer last year in the U.S.A. accounting for 24.8% market share of devices sold. LG was second followed by Motorola, RIM and Apple.

Mobile devices continued to be used for a wide variety of activities in addition to making phone calls. Text messaging was the most popular activity, with 68% of American mobile subscribers texting in Decmber 2010.

While the dominance of SMS might seem old-fashioned, one must keep in mind that the mobile phone is a communications device first and foremost. Moreover, a number of new technologies saw increased adoption too. 39.5% of subscribers used their mobiles to get news and information, 36.4% used their mobile browsers, 34.4% used mobile apps and 21.4% accessed mobile search services.

Media Tablets are slate devices that support touch, and run a lightweight operating system. Some examples of media tablets are Apple’s iPad and the recently released Samsung Galaxy Tab.

According to Gartner’s forecasts, sales of these tablets are expected to touch 20 million this year, and grow to over 200 million by 2014.

Carolina Milanesi, Vice President of Research at Gartner, believes that the media tablet is closer to a smartphone than to a mini-notebook or a personal computer, and hence, is likely to become very popular. Many would argue that this might not be the reason consumers buy media tablets, but instead could be the reason many don’t! However, it doesn’t change the fact that media tablets have become one of the most talked-about new gadgets of the year.

It is expected that in 2010, North America will be the clear leader in the market for media tablets, with 61% of the market share. By 2014, international markets are expected to hold 57% of the market share.

While the average size of the tablet is about 7 inches at present, it is likely to go up to 10 inches by 2014, due to newer features that are likely to be incorporated.

A media tablet requires a Wi-Fi connection or a 3G cellular connection, or both, to be operational. At present only about 50% of tablets manufactured have both modes of communication in-built. By 2014, this is likely to change as 80% of tablets are expected to have both 3G and Wi-Fi communication capabilities.

It is highly likely that media tablets will initially be perceived only as notebook add-ons for official use. They will most likely evolve and soon be used for personal reasons such as video viewing, playing games and reading books.

Although rumours about a Nexus Two phone remain unconfirmed, they are strong and consistent. City A.M. claimed that the new Google-branded phone would be available for retail before the Christmas holidays through Carphone Warehouse in the U.K. Shortly after that, the Android and Me site speculated on what the new Nexus Two phone’s configuration might be. Gizmodo even went so far as to release a conceptualisation of what they hope the Nexus Two might look like.

The new Android device to be launched by Samsung is expected to run on the latest version of Android, code named “Gingerbread”, which is a faster and more efficient system, compared to Android version 2.1. The placement of a large Gingerbread man by Google in the company’s grounds in California has fuelled the rumours of a big product launch further.

Nexus One Woes

Considering that the Nexus One did not fare too well, falling spectacularly short of Google’s promise to revolutionise the mobile phone buying process,  it would come as quite a surprise that Google might even consider going down the same route again. They would have to make drastic changes to get past the negativity that led to the closure of the Nexus One store hardly 5 months after its launch, to ensure the success of the Nexus Two.

It would be advisable for Google to ensure that the Nexus Two, if it does become a reality, be compatible with various mobile operators and also that it be functional on GSM as well as CDMA technologies.

Google may also consider replacing the carrier subsidy for the cost of the phone, by subsidizing the phone themselves. The expense could be offset by the revenue from mobile advertising. They could also be more aggressive with their marketing pitch to lure more users. They could offer good exchange offers etc.

Samsung has denied the rumours about the launch of the Nexus Two. According to Scott Webster at CNet, Samsung is far more likely to just release a new flagship Android-powered phone with their own branding on it.

Market Signals

Eagerness of the tech community to lap up rumours about a new Google mobile phone could be quite telling in itself. The desire for a new Google-branded devise is definitely there. The question remains, will Google be able to learn from the mistakes of Nexus One and truly break ground in the mobile industry the second time round?

A similar service was made available by AdMob for the Apple iPhone platform almost a year ago.

Google’s mobile advertising blog explains that the addition of these rich media interstitial units to Android will be an exciting opportunity for mobile advertisers to reach a larger audience.

If this feature can just succeed in getting users to click on the ad more often, it could help in the development of more free apps. For instance, when the game Angry Birds was first introduced on the iPhone and iPad, it was a paid app. But later, when it was introduced on Android, it was free along with some ads, as its developers found that they could make more money through advertising rather than by just selling the game. Now, users get a free game that is paid for by ads.

Android video ad on Angry Birds game. Image courtesy of Google

So far, mobile ads have mostly been in the form of text and banners, which do not generate a lot of curiosity from users. However, the new interactive ads could be more interesting.

Google stated that 200,000 new Android connections are now activated on a daily basis, as compared to only 60,000 last February. The number of apps available has also doubled since last May and is now at 100,000.

It will now be possible for advertisers to reach users of the iPhone as well as Android devices through one single platform.

Google stands to gain a lot by developing an operating system, especially one that is based around their Web browser Chrome, which serves as a direct gateway to the Google search service.

When the Chrome OS was first officially unveiled, 11 months ago, it had been scheduled for release by the end of 2010. In fact, it was expected to be launched before the holiday season began. If current indications are to be believed, the Chrome OS will probably be launched on the 11th of November. Available reports indicate that the operating system is presently in Release Candidate (RC) status, and its current build version is 0.9.78.1. (The product will be ready for release with build version 1.0).

Rumours about the Chrome OS launch date are based on a Google employee referring to the date in the Chromium OS public forum and the fact that the Chrome Web Store is ready to be launched this month, which is expected to be around the time that the OS would be made available.

The 11/11/2010 date could just be the date when another new version (perhaps 0.9.9) of the code might be released or could be the date set for a final code freeze and the official launch could take place a week later on the 19th of November, which is the first anniversary of the unveiling of the Chrome OS.

Google engineers are supposedly working on features such as screen savers and colour highlights at present, which typically are built during the final stages.

A spokesperson for Google told TechCrunch, “We are very happy with the progress of Google Chrome OS and expect devices will be available later this year. We’ll have more details to share at launch.”

Critics say that when the Chrome OS was first announced, the Android OS was not as good as it is now. The Chrome OS development team will therefore have to work even harder to match up to the Android OS.

Application developers will be keen to develop new apps for the system. In fact, unofficial Chrome OS builds have already been available for some time now. Chrome OS powered netbooks and tablets may also be available soon.

Competitors BlackBerry RIM and Apple iOS are running neck-to-neck for the second slot.

Between January and August 2010 the Android OS has grown steadily from a modest 14% market share to 32%.

RIM on the other hand has been wavering between 34% in January to 37% in March and 26% at present. Similarly, the Apple iOS has gone down from a high of 32% in January to about 25% at present.

However, when the total number of smartphone owners are compared, BlackBerry wins the first place with 31% of the market and is followed by Apple with 28%. Android devices have only 19% of the market share as yet but are bound to catch up if the current growth rate is upheld.

However, if Apple’s plans to make a deal with Verizon and T-Mobile materialise, the picture could change in favour of Apple.

The Street reports that the deal is in the final stages of completion. Reliable sources have even revealed that the deal may be announced as soon as the 26th of October, when PayPal holds its developers conference in San Francisco.

So far, Google has only offered their own payment system, CheckOut, as a mode of payment for users who buy various applications from the Android Market. This system, which requires users who don’t already have an account to create one or enter their credit card number is a little cumbersome, and can dissuade potential buyers.

The mode of payment that Google has used so far has created difficulties not only for users, but also for the developers. The introduction of PayPal as a mode of payment, will not only simplify the payment procedure for those who buy apps from the Android Market, but this will also help Google to compete with Apple’s App Store and iTunes, which use a single click mode of payment.

Developers have also had several problems with Google’s payment system, including the fact that foreign currencies are not easily accepted. Google accepts paid apps in only about 13 countries, while Apple does so in about 90 countries.

A deal between Google and PayPal could help streamline all these hassles, and at the same time, give competitors such as Apple and BlackBerry a run for their money.

Last week, at an event in San Francisco, Google announced a new voice function called Voice Actions, which will allow users to perform various functions such as sending emails and finding and playing music through the voice search application.

Google’s director of product management, Hugo Barra said that 25% of those using Android 2.0 are already using voice search. According to Google, their voice search feature is 70% accurate, which is far higher than their telecommunications service, Google Voice.

Voice Actions is a cloud-based service. It joins the likes of Google Goggles and Google Navigation on the cloud, making the convergence of mobile technology and cloud computing a thing of the very near future.

As a whole, voice search now refers to any voice-to-mobile interface that enables different actions like search, looking up locations, looking up phone numbers and placing a call, navigating to a locations and even browsing.

Apple already has a similar feature, acquired from Siri, for which they are believed to have paid $200 million. Microsoft has also hinted that the upcoming Windows Phone 7 will have voice-activated features.

The total number of smartphones that have been sold in the second quarter of 2010 is around 63 million. During the same time last year, the number was 41.9 million. Moreover, 118.3 million smartphones shipped in the first six months of 2010 is which is 54% higher than the 76.8 million phones that were sold during the first half of last year.

HTC and Samsung, both Google Android partners, showed a growth rate of 128.6% and 172.7% respectively.

Nokia is still the largest smartphone supplier with a 38.1% market share and is followed by Research In Motion (RIM)’ Blackberry, which holds 17.8% market share. Apple is in third position in the smartphone market, with 13.3%. HTC is next with 7.6% and Samsung has 4.8% share of the market.

Ramon Llamas of IDC’s Mobile Devices Technology and Trends team says, “The worldwide smartphone market will continue this explosive growth in the second half of 2010, setting up a critical starting point for 2011.”

While Nokia and the Symbian OS are at the top of the market, Google’s Android OS is growing the fastest. In the second quarter of 2010, Android had a market share of 17% compared to just 1.8% in the same period last year. Android is now only one percentage point behind RIM.

In this fierce battle, the one company that has not fared well is Microsoft. They now have only 5% of the market share compared to 9.3% last year. They hope to be able to rectify this situation soon, with the launch of their new operating system.

These sentiments were expressed by Google’s Chief Financial Officer, Patrick Pichette recently, while replying to a question from a financial analyst during the company’s second quarter earnings call on the 16th of July.

He said, “Android] is not a huge resource investment, but it’s a formidable return in that what you have is the entire ecosystem exploding.”

While Apple is obviously minting money through the sale of iPhones (the new iPhone reportedly sold 3 million pieces in just three weeks) Google is doing so through the sale of mobile ads on the iPhone.

Other phone makers are also using the Android open source operating system to make new Android devices.

Search has reportedly grown by 300% in the first half of this year, according to Jonathan Rosenberg, Vice President of Product Management at Google. He says that the most popular app on the Android devices is a browser through which users search for products and ads thus helping Google to earn more money.

Although the Android operating system was first made with the intention of using it for mobile phones, it is now being used in other devices such as netbooks and tablets PCs.

Victoria Fodale, an analyst at ABI Research, has estimated that by the year 2015, the Android Operating System will be the base for 33% of Linux-enabled smartphones.

According to Fodale, one of the important reasons for the sudden growth in the popularity of the Android, is its flexibility, as it can easily be modified to suit different products.

Jen-Hsun Huang, the Chief Executive of graphics chip supplier, Nvidia says, “The good news is that we finally have an operating system to unite behind.” He further says, that Windows is not suitable for tablets, as it is too big and has too many features.

In quite a contrast to Huang’s opinion, however, computer and device makers, Asus have announced that they will be launching a Windows-based tablet next year.

One should not forget that Android has yet to globally overtake the popular Apple OS X operating system, which is used in the extremely popular iPhone and iPad. With Apple having sold 1 million iPads in just four weeks after it was launched, manufacturers have realised that there is a great demand for tablets and they will surely try to cash-in on that demand soon.

Intel, Nokia and Samsung have also announced 2 Linux-based operating systems, “bada” from Samsung and “MeeGo” from Intel and Nokia.

Google TV

The biggest single announcement at Google I/O was probably the launch of Google TV, which is an open platform built on Android and meant to run on the Google Chrome browser.

Google TV will enable users to access the shows they want to, when they want to, on their television screens. Google TV features integrated search to allow users to find relevant content across channel listings, DVR, and the Internet, as well as a picture-in-picture layout to access multiple windows simultaneously. With this service, Google undoubtedly has its eyes set on the $70 billion U.S. TV advertising market. Google TV enabled devices will go on sale in autumn 2010.

www.google.com/tv

Clicker TV

Google also introduced Clicker TV, which is basically a TV guide that allows users to find programmes by scrolling through the options with a remote control or arrow keys on a keyboard. The Clicker TV website can work on any browser and will be a free service in the U.S.

Android 2.2 (Froyo)

Android 2.2, which has been nicknamed Froyo (from Frozen Yoghurt), was also announced at the event. The new version of the platform will be much faster, will have new enterprise features such as Exchange calendar synchronisation and will include portable hotspot functionality, the ability for apps to participate in device messaging and data backup and will support Adobe Flash.

Google Wave

Google Wave has been brought out of beta and is now available to everyone. It is supposed to now be much faster and easier to use than before.

Chrome Web Store

The Chrome Web Store is scheduled for launch later this year and will be an open marketplace for Web apps. Google Chrome and the Chrome Web Store will support installable web apps. Applications from the Chrome Web Store will allow users to install their favorite web apps. An installed web app could be separated visually from other tabs, could integrate better with the operating system and could be granted increased permissions.

chrome.google.com/webstore

Storage for Developers

Google Storage for Developers, a new service also announced at the I/O event, is a RESTful cloud service built on Google’s storage and networking infrastructure. With the API, developers can connect their applications to reliable cloud-based storage that is replicated across several U.S. data centres. This service is being previewed with only a few developers initially.

Verizon’s Chief Executive, Lowell McAdam, said in an interview with the Wall Street Journal. “We’re working on tablets together, for example. We’re looking at all the things Google has in its archives that we could put on a tablet to make it a great experience.”

He has not yet set a date by which this tablet could be launched nor has he mentioned which company would manufacture it.

Andy Rubin of Google feels that in the future software developers could write programmes that would run on both Android mobile phones as well as on the tablet, in the same manner as apps are being used on the iPhone as well as on the iPad.

The iPad, created by Apple and supported by AT&T, has become so popular that rivals of both these companies are trying hard to regain market share lost due to the launch of these devices.

As consumers use their mobile phones for a wider variety of purposes, from downloading content to browsing the Internet, it is but natural that the demand for light-weight portable computers is on the rise worldwide. The demand for netbooks, tablets and e-readers is growing. This is confirmed by the fact that Apple sold 1 million iPads in just 1 month after its launch.

Google had offered a first glimpse of the Chrome OS for Tablets back in February, just after the launch of the iPad, which led many to believe that Google was planning to release its own Apple iPad or Amazon Kindle rival. The latest announcement is a small surprise, only because they’ve decided to use Android OS, which is more mobile-oriented rather than the Chrome OS, which is more desktop-oriented.

Verizon-Google’s new device will offer many interesting services and high transfer speeds. McAdam believes that the system of one-price plan per device is likely to change in the near future and users will have to pay more for the facilities they will be provided with.

Apple and Google aren’t the only ones gunning for market share. Dell and Toshiba have also announced that they are working on a tablet, and Hewlett-Packard has said that they plan to buy over Palm to start their own line of tablet PCs.

As of now, the updated service is available only in the U.S.A. on the iPhone and on Android devices.

When a user views the results of a search query, tapping on a button to the left of the search box on the search results page will reveal the new search options menu. When the user selects one of the items in the menu, the search results get refined, just as is done on regular search.

The expanded search options menu will make the paid and organic search results slide to the right side of the screen. The user can still interact with the results by panning right.

New options, such as News and Products, have also been added to the menu.

Google has promised to roll out the updated interface on other devices and in other locations as soon as possible. They will also offer more options soon.

While speaking at the Web 2.0 Expo, Google’s Steve Lee hinted that a new version of Latitude would be available shortly. The updated version will allow users to access information and data about where they have been. Access to this information will be restricted to the user only.

Contrary to initial reports, the geo-location service is doing pretty well, TechCrunch reports. Latitude has 3 million active users. This is especially significant when compared to competitors, Foursquare and My Town, which have 1 million and 2 million users respectively.

In fact, 8 million people that have signed up for Latitude since its inception. It is believed that this year, Latitude grew 30% each month. The current growth of Android and Blackberry is no doubt helping fuel this growth.

Google hopes to have several third party mobile applications working through the Latitude API in the near future.

The new Place Pages for Mobile will provide relevant information about places of interest in a given neighbourhood, to people on the go. Apart from giving the exact location of a shop, hotel, restaurant, tourist spot or any other business, the service will also provide a lot of detailed information about the place, including opening times, users reviews, ratings and images of the place.

As with the regular Place Pages, the mobile Place Pages can be accessed by clicking on the relevant location pinpointed on Google Maps.

Instead of including a mini map within the place pages, Google requires users to instead have to click on a ‘map’ button, which isn’t really smart for a mobile interface where fewer clicks are always better.

At present, the new Place Pages for Mobile are only available on Android-powered handsets and the iPhone and iPod in the U.S.A.

Interested users can view the service through a google.com search on their smartphones. They then have to click on the relevant local business listing on the search results page.

AdMob’s data is pulled from visits to the 15,000+ sites and applications on their network. Data from every ad request, impression, and click on the network is stored and analysed. The monthly report provides a pretty reliable snapshot that provides insight into trends in the mobile ecosystem.

In the United States, the market share of the Android operating system from Google has gone up substantially from 27% in November 2009 to 42% in February 2010.

The iPhone operating system continues to be the most popular in the U.S. even in February 2010, but its lead has fallen from 55% to 44% during the same time period from Nov 2009 to Feb 2010.

Worldwide, the iPhone still holds 50% smartphone market share, while Android has only about 24% of the market. However, the Android operating system is doing well internationally,  considering the fact that the Google mobile OS accounted for only 16% market share one year ago.

The top Android phones in the market are the Motorola Droid, HTC Dream, HTC Hero, HTC Magic and Motorola QLIC.

Overall, smartphone traffic has also gone up from 35% in February 2009 to 48% in February 2010. On the other hand, the market share of feature phones has gone down from 58% to 35% in that period.

Google base their claim to openness on the fact that they have opened up the source code for the Android mobile operating system, Chrome Web browser and Chrome operating system and a few other products so that the larger developer community can improve on them.

Rosenberg says, “at Google we believe that open systems win. They lead to more innovation, value and freedom of choice for consumers, and a vibrant profitable and competitive ecosystem for businesses.”

While all this discussion about openness is fine, one cannot help but notice the fact that Google’s largest source of income is their search engine, which ranks web pages to create relevant search results for user queries. And nobody really knows how the algorithm for this ranking system works, apart from the few people at Google who are in charge of the algorithm.

Google’s argument against making this algorithm public is, of course, that spammers would misuse this information if it were easily available to all.

This argument seems weak, however, as it has been proved by other open source projects such as the Mozilla Foundation’s Firefox, that while an open algorithm may seem to help spammers, there would be an army of developers ready to combat the spammers.

If anything, all of Google’s talk about the importance of being open seems to be a cheap dig at Microsoft, and an attempt to make Microsoft seem like the bad guys just before Google launches a full-blown attack on Microsoft Windows by launching their own operating system.

The confirmation has come through none other than the Wall Street Journal.

While it was earlier speculated that the new phone would be launched before the end of this year, it has now been confirmed by sources close to the matter that the phone will in fact be launched early next year, possibly in January itself.

The new phone has been given the name Nexus One, and the hardware required for it is being built by HTC. The phone has actually been designed by Google. This new phone may be similar to the forthcoming HTC Passion or might in fact be a renamed version of the same.

The operating system for this phone will of course be Android. The other features expected on this phone are that it will have a capacitive touch screen, on-screen keyboard, a thin scroll ball and animated desktop wallpaper.

It will be sold in the unlocked state and will be sold without any subsidy from a wireless partner. At least initially the phone will be available directly from Google online.

The launch of this new phone by the Internet giant will not only give competition to all other smart phones in the market, but it also highlights Google’s ambitions of expanding their own horizons further.

Mobile devices are predicted to “Eclipse the PC” next year. While the report does not actually predict the death of the Personal Computer, it does say that the mobile Web will grow, to the extent that it no longer remains subservient or secondary to the PC. Mobiles will become the primary source of Web browsing for many.

It is expected that the number of mobile Web users will cross the 1 billion mark in 2010, while the number of PC users will be around 1.3 billion. The growth rate of mobile devices will be 2.5 times that of the PC.

The growing numbers of smart phones, such as the iPhone, Blackberry and Google Android powered devices, along with good mobile operating systems, are responsible for this explosive growth.

200 million more smart phones are expected to hit the markets in 2010.

IDC also predicts that the iPhone, which currently has about 1,00,000 applications, will have about 3,00,000 applications by the end of the next year, while Android, which has just 10,000 applications will have 50,000 to 75,000 applications by then, further boosting the mobile Internet.

Google’s open operating system, Android, will also provide stiff competition to the iPhone.

The typically over-hyped Apple tablet, which they have called the ‘iPad’, and Microsoft’s own tablet device, which is expected to launch in the coming year as well, will further contribute to this growth.

Realtime search service OneRiot, which is in talks with Yahoo! to provide them with realtime search, is also tying up with mobile search engine, Taptu, to deliver realtime search services to mobile Internet users. Taptu will make use of OneRiot’s API to provide these realtime search results.

OneRiot has already started developing additional APIs that will be able to provide relevant ads on mobile handsets, thus monetising the service. The service collects realtime results from various sources such as Twitter, Digg and Facebook.

Taptu has added a new feature on it homepage, which is essentially a search engine interface compatible with mobile browsers. The homepage has a search box with options to search the Web, Images and now, ‘Buzz’, which is where the realtime search results will be provided.

Buzz search is currently available on all iPhone, iPod Touch, G1 (Android), Blackberry Storm 1, Nokia N97 and 5800 handsets. All other devices still show the old search interface, which provides the option of ‘All’, images, video and music searches.

Until now, mobile users could access realtime search results by searching for trending topics on Twitter. However, this new service will certainly be more direct and efficient.

Mobile users with compatible handsets can test the service at:

www.taptu.com

The report says, “The emergence of devices such as the iPhone and HTC Dream (G1) that deliver truly compelling Internet experiences has generated discussion of which Web consumers will use on mobile – mobile Web sites or HTML sites.”

This question is what must have encouraged AdMob to undertake this survey. The survey was based on data collected from ad requests on their own vast network of about 7,000 mobile websites and 1,600 apps, and also from details provided by Gartner.

According to the findings of this report, smartphones have a smaller market share compared to other handsets, but they still account for almost 3 times the usage compared to the usage by other handsets.

Some of the findings of the survey are listed below.

While the iPhone OS holds only 8% of the market share, it is responsible for 43% of mobile web requests and 65% of HTML use.

The Android OS has even less than 1% of the smartphone market share but it generates 3% of the mobile web requests and 9% of HTML requests.

On the other hand the Symbian OS which holds a huge chunk of the smartphone market share – 52%, carries only 36% of requests for mobile web usage and a mere 7% of HTML usage.

The survey also found that 24% of requests made from the U.S. were made using a Wi-Fi network. The iPhone, iPod Touch, Sony PSP, HTC Dream (G1) and HTC Dash are the most popularly used Wi-Fi handsets.

The study concludes that overall, mobile Web sites are used far more on smartphones than HTML sites on those phones which operate on the RIM and Symbian operating systems.

This new facility has been integrated with the Google Product Search for mobiles. This service could be especially useful to find out details of certain products, study product reviews and compare prices with other similar products. This service can be very useful when the shopper is actually in the store and needs to make a quick decision on whether or not to buy a particular product.

At present this is a free service.

In order to use this facility, a user first has to download the app on his handset. To do so, he goes to Google.com on his handset and accesses Google Product Search on the homepage. He then goes to a tab titled ‘more’ and selects ‘Shopping’. He can then click on the ‘Scan Barcode’ button to install the latest version of the barcode scanner app.

Once the app is installed, he can easily use his phone to scan various products, by going to Product Search and using the ‘Scan Barcode’ button. When the app opens, there is a red line, which must be centered over the UPC (Universal Product Code) and the phone camera should be held steadily over it. Once the barcode is read, the user will receive a Google Product Search Results page, on his handset.

This barcode system is currently useful for products like books, videos, electronics, movies etc, and Google is already in the process of adding barcodes of more products.

If the barcode scan is unsuccessful, users can always proceed by typing in the search term or product name as usual.

This facility has only been introduced in the U.S. and U.K. on Android powered handsets and is similar to iPhone’s Snaptell.

Social implications of Google Latitude are obvious. The product sets the base for what could be an extensive geo-spatially aware mobile social network with the potential to deliver extremely targeted ads to users depending on their current location.
The latter application, MyTracks, does not have as far-reaching potential, though. However, it is  definitely highlighting what could become a pattern for forthcoming Google Mobile launches.

Outdoor sports enthusiasts such as bikers, skiers and runners should be particularly thrilled with the latest offering. The service, which works on Android powered phones such as T-Mobile’s G1, keeps track of a user’s path, by means of the mobile phone’s GPS.

It also provides details such as speed, elevation and distance covered. These details can then be downloaded to a spreadsheet using Google Docs or to Google Maps. Once that is done these details can be forwarded to friends through email or Twitter. The application is free to use.

Earlier, GPS devices required the user to plug in a separate device into the computer, install special; software and then transfer the track to the web by uploading it. All this cumbersome activity has been eliminated. Now, a user just needs to carry an Android phone when outdoors.
My Tracks will then offer details such as recording and visualising the track followed during any outdoor activities such as running, jogging, cycling and hiking. It will also give the total time taken, the average speed, distance covered, elevation and so on.
Users can forward these details to other members in their groups so that others can follow the same trail or avoid certain dangerous spots.

http://mytracks.appspot.com/

The potential for greatness definitely lies withing mobile social activity. If the user numbers are any indication, this is where the future of mobile might lie. And Google seems to be right on track to cash in on this growing market.

Business Week reports that Motorola has invested $50 million in their Android Social Phone project, which will be managed by Motorola-owned mobile email company, Good Technology.
Motorola will require at least 6 months before they are ready to launch their new phone. They have not even announced a name for it as yet.

The phone is expected to have a touch screen like the iPhone, and a slide out QWERTY key board like the HTC T-Mobile G1. The look, though, is expected to be on the lines of the Motorola Krave, and it is likely to be cheaper than the G1 phone, at around $150.

The G1 phone is already capable of transferring contacts from ones Gmail account into the phone. It is likely that Motorola’s Android phone may take this one step further by tieing up with Facebook and or MySpace, to enable transferring contacts from these social networks into the phone’s address book. This would also enable users to check status updates and activity streams on the phone itself. Facebook has a similar facility with the iPhone, but they require a separate app for this, which may not be necessary on Motorola’s Android.

Whether people will be really keen on getting Facebook or MySpace on their phones or not will decide the future of the Android Social phone and indirectly that of Motorola too.

Though Motorola is the third largest mobile phone manufacturer in the world, their mobile phone division has made losses to the tune of $1.9 million in the last year and is desperately in need of another success story like the RAZR. They hope the Android phone might be just the thing they need.

The first Android handset, which will be called ‘Dream’, has been designed by HTC, a Taiwanese smart-phone company, and will be run by T-Mobile.

Android version 1.0, which will be based on an open source platform, will have to take on the likes of the already established iPhone, BlackBerry and Symbian operating systems in the highly competitive smart-phone market.

At present, Research In Motion’s Blackberry is the most sought after handset in the U.S., while Nokia’s Symbian phones are the most wanted worldwide.

Google has been spearheading the collaboration to develop Android in conjunction with several other mobile companies such as T-Mobile, Intel, HTC, eBay, Motorola, LG and Samsung.

The open source system on which Android is based will be able to provide several new features, such as tracking of family members and videos accompanied by local, map-based information.

In contrast to Apple’s policy of monitoring all programs manufactured for its iPhone through their App Store, Android will give complete freedom to its developers. To do this they are introducing the ‘Android Market’ rather than a store to give the feeling of openness. Users will be able to add any programme they find useful or interesting. Some of these programmes will be free, while others will have to be paid for.

Speaking to MSNBC, Francesco Roveta, Director of eBay Mobile, said that there should be no concern regarding lack of quality control in spite of the open market, as eventually, users will only accept programs that are well designed and user friendly. The rest would “rapidly fall into oblivion.”

Gretchen Grisworld, V.P. Marketing at Packet Video, says, “the beauty of an open system is the ability to innovate without restrictions and distribute without boundaries.”

To encourage programme developers, Google has announced prizes worth $10 million, to the top application developers in the Android Developer Challenge, the first phase of which were announced on August 29. One of the winning programmes, Life360, is based on GPS technology and allows users to track family members, store important documents and communicate in emergencies, through its ‘always-on background network connectivity.’
The winners of Android Developer Challenge said that programs such as Life360, GoCart and Locale could not have been created on any other mobile platform, as they were possible to build only in an open environment.

Traditionally the 700 MHz spectrum was used for television broadcasting. On 19 Feb 2009, the TV channels using this spectrum will be turned off and transmitted via set-top boxes, and usage of the spectrum will be handed over to Verizon. GigaOm provides a good explanation of the history of this part of the wireless spectrum

Increased coverage and better penetration through walls make the 700 MHz spectrum attractive for Verizon, who will use it to cut costs and achieve greater nationwide coverage in the United States. Verizon will now be able to reduce their roaming cost by having their own towers in rural areas, and they will also be able to provide DSL-like service to rural areas.

AT&T was another big spender, paying about $6 billion at the auction, in addition to their prior purchase of Aloha Partners’ 12MHz of spectrum, which covers 196 million people in the U.S.

Before the spectrum was auctioned Google convinced the FCC to set up openness standards for the winner of this block. Their lobbying efforts resulted in the FCC setting standards that allow users of the 700 MHz spectrum to attach any device and allow access to any applications that don’t harm the network.

The search giant’s interest in this auction was mainly to ensure open standards would be maintained, which will be very useful once their Android platform is in use.

Google had also shown a strong interest in the spectrum and had bid on it. They were possibly discouraged from heavier bidding due to investor concerns about their stock price and fears of Google moving away from search operations, which are the mainstay of the company.

This re-launched Go mobile platform from Yahoo! will open the doors to third-party application developers, just like Google’s Android project does. Yahoo! Go is relatively popular… quite a few users have actually downloaded the software onto their mobile phones. Other developers don’t need to convince users to do the same with their applications as well; they can just piggy-back on the Yahoo! platform now.

Download Yahoo! Go

Go 3.0 itself offers some impressive improvements, in the form of a more personalised homepage and an “upgraded user-interface”. The improvements make the entire user experience more conducive to browsing the Internet, or at least the Yahoo! Go-related Internet from a mobile phone. Some of the nicer features we liked were:

• Smooth browsing through Flickr photographs
• Easy integration with Yahoo! Mail
• Quick, free access to local information including traffic and weather

Yahoo! has also been busy developing what it likes to believe will be the next generation of web services, within a social setting. The CEO of the company, Jerry Yang personally attended CES 2008, where he demonstrated a new service that he called “Life with an exclamation point”, which aims to integrate different applications such as email, structured data, tags and other information in a social context and thus help users in multiple facets of their life through advanced technology.

This interface too will be open to third party application integration. Like Facebook, the new service’s homepage will also highlight relevant updates from various connections instead of just showing an inbox. Dan Farber at ZDNet has details and screenshots of the demo system.

As TechCrunch have noted, similar such platforms and strategies have been adopted in the past by the likes of Microsoft, Google and Facebook. It remains to be seen whether Yahoo! Life!, which sounds eerily similar to Microsoft Live, will really provide anything new or if it will turn out to be just another copy of the same old platforms.

Yahoo! hope the two new offerings will enable their customers to use the Web more productively and more easily. However it will take a while for the complete new social package to be available due to security concerns, which must be addressed first. They expect to see some form of the platform during the year, but full functionality might not be available in 2008.

One hopes that these latest innovations will help to restore Yahoo! to its earlier place of pride vis-à-vis the internet, considering the fact that they used to be the stars of the Internet before Google came and rained on their parade. Share prices of Yahoo! Inc. have taken a beating off late while those of their competitor, Google Inc; have risen significantly, often at Yahoo!’s expense.

Rumour has it that Google may create an open-source hardware platform for television and attract developers to build applications on top of it. As usual, Google will not comment on any such rumour, but speculation has already stirred up the blogosphere once again.

The existence of Google TV Ads has been public knowledge since March 2007. Google TV Ads is currently in closed beta and allows advertisers to buy spots via Echostar’s Dish network. Advertisers receive second-by-second data about viewership data.

Google TV Ads

Vincent Dureau, the head of Google’s TV technology team says, “We are confident we are going to revive the television advertising industry by bringing new advertising to it.”

The prospects are very promising, but till Google officially announces their plans, all predictions about their intentions for TV advertising are nothing more than mere speculation.

Over the past few months the blogosphere has been buzzing with rumours about Google’s next foray in the mobile market. While most knew the announcement would go far beyond just another mobile search feature, speculation ranged from Google introducing a revolutionary piece of hardware, nicknamed GPhone, to launching special software that would run on mobile phones.

Google have ended all speculation by finally confirming that they have founded the Open Handset Alliance, in partnership with over 30 mobile and technology industry leaders. Members of the alliance are committed to creating an open mobile ecosystem, allowing companies to innovate and be part of the astonishing growth in mobile device adoption.

Official Google Blog Announcement – Where’s My GPhone?

Android^TM is the first result of this alliance – a complete set of software for mobile devices: an operating system, middleware and key mobile applications. A Software Development Kit (SDK) will be made available on November 12, to allow developers to build rich mobile applications. Handsets based on the Android platform, however, will only be available in the second half of 2008.

Android^TM

This open platform strategy is no different than the OpenSocial strategy that Google have adopted for social media, and will probably benefit them in the long run in the same way – by making it easy for developers to include Google AdWords mobile ads onto their applications.

While most of the world’s mobile phone owning population of 2.7 billion people might never use Android, Google have nevertheless made yet another strong move towards expanding their target market from 850 Million PC users to an audience that is three times as large.

Founding members of the Open Handset Alliance include the following companies:

• Broadcom
• China Mobile Research Institute
• Deutsche Telekom
• Ebay
• Google
• HTC Corp.
• Intel
• LG
• Marvell Semiconductor
• Motorola
• NTT DoCoMo
• Nuance Communications
• NVIDIA
• Qualcomm
• Samsung
• Sprint Nextel
• Telecom Italia
• Telefónica
• Texas Instruments

Introducing Android – A word from the founders