Online Net Meeting

Earlier today at GDC Europe, which takes place before Gamescom this week in Germany, Google’s new game developer advocate Mark DeLoura and Chrome developer advocate Michael Mahemoff talked about Google’s major entry into the browser game space with its app store for Chrome. Set to launch this October, the store aims to make a proper marketplace for browser games — one that solves a lot of the issues of games on the web today, from discovery to monetization.

First, Mark discussed the benefits of Chrome for browser gaming (mainly its speed) and why developers should be excited about its app store, which you can watch in the video highlight below. After that, we’ll walk you through the rest of their presentation.

After the intro about Chrome and why developers would want to create content for the app store, the two spoke about all of the technologies that will aid developers in making browser-based games and the features of the app store itself.

Mark shows how the store will work. It’ll use Google Checkout to keep purchases simple.

This is what the latest version of what the app store looks like.

This is an individual game page on the store. It’ll have customer reviews and you’ll be able to see your friends’ ratings.

Google explains what it means by web apps.

Google stressed how easy it will be for publishers to publish content via their service. There is no approval process for getting content posted.

Unlike typical digital stores, in which a content publisher usually keeps about 70 percent of the profit, Google isn’t seeking a rev share — only a 5% processing fee. Google will also allow free games, but not games that require you to pay later. It isn’t ready to handle Microtransactions for launch, but will later on (in the meantime gamemakers can use their own solutions).

One of the flash games that runs great in Chrome, Plants vs. Zombies.

Google also showed off a flash version of Lego Star Wars.

Google said it’s interested in a lot of classic games — they showed a port of Nethack.

Then Michael Mahemoff came out to talk about developing games using HTML5 and associated technologies.

He talked about how much HTML has evolved; how there are so many more common libraries now.

He also talked about how members of the Google Web Toolkit team did a port of Quake II using HTML5.

Michael then discussed how the web began as sort of a black art, but now lots of libraries are available.

He mentioned Atwood’s Law: “Any application that can be written in JavaScript, will eventually be written in JavaScript.” Essentially, he pointed out that if games can be written for browsers, they will be.

Michael highlighted FreeCiv.net, a multiplayer strategy game playable in a browser.

This was an example of what’s possible with CSS these days; the fail whale demo, in which the Twitter whale was entirely accomplished via CSS.

Another example, this time the game Lemmings accomplished with absolute positioning (!).

Google’s own Pac-Man stunt was done with HTML5.

One of the benefits of browser-based games is that you can easily include web content inside a game, or web-based widgets or modules.

Of course, Google took the opportunity to show off video playing in HTML5.

Google also discussed how Web GL (apps that can take advantage of your computer’s hardware) and C++, a language many developers are already well versed in, being used for browser-based games will be incredibly exciting for the space. Obviously, Google’s presentation was a big pitch for developers to support Chrome and its app store initiative, but it was neat to see just how much is possible via the browser these days. We’ll have further updates on the app store as it nears its launch this fall.

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Google Shows the Future of Browser Games

The Acer Aspire One AOD255 netbook uses Android as a quick-booting operating system and then Windows as the main operating system. Acer software on the device, called Acer Configuration Manager for Android, controls which OS will boot.

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hi Stephen Newall, from Bath in the UK, seeing is believing.

seeing is believing

For such a long-time Apple believer and Mac/iPhone customer, the idea of turning my back on Steve Jobs and crew, stopping my app store and media buying preferences almost entirely and choosing a divergent path is not one taken lightly. In the two months following Google I/O, I’ve talked about my looking at Android and how I think the mobile operating system is a real challenger to the iPhone’s place on the pedestal in the world of smartphones, but I didn’t make a lot of noise about my taking the final step and switching to Android. It turns out that on the very day the iPhone 4 hit Apple Stores and AT&T Stores around the country, I was trading mine in and converting the family (including my wife) to Google’s OS. Given many of the comments I have seen around the Web comparing the two platforms, I thought I would explain my choice – especially as news articles are hitting seemingly every day that back up my hypotheses.

For me, more than the over-used phrase of “open”, the promise of true multitasking, and the platform’s integration with Google Apps, was one word – “Choice”. Choice of handsets. Choice of carriers. Choice of manufacturers. Second behind the word choice has to be “Momentum”. I can see that Android has momentum in terms of improved quality, in terms of the number of devices sold and users, and yes, applications, which are growing in quantity, soon to be followed by quality. I really do believe that if Android does not already have a market share lead over Apple yet in this discussion, they soon will. It is inevitable. The growth in the number of handsets, carriers and users will drive more developers to the platform, and the holdouts who are not there will eventually make the move. And yes, third is “Cloud” – the idea that I don’t need to be tied to my desktop computer to manage data on the phone, but instead, the phone is built to tap into data stored on the Web. Fourth is “Capability”. The Android platform, as the Droid commercials offer, simply does more. The power of the mobile hotspot cannot be understated, and the iPhone is a zero there.

Unfortunately, I am pretty sure I hadn’t previously made that decision process clear. Most, thanks to my derogatory comments against AT&T (rightly deserved, I may add), thought I switched from my AT&T-fed iPhone to my Sprint contract on the HTC EVO and new HTC Hero because of the many frequent issues with the carrier. This is not true. Yes, AT&T has been dramatically underdelivering in terms of quality and functionality, but this did not drive me away from Apple as much as the lack of choice did. Not even the announcement of an imminent offering of a Verizon iPhone could have kept me on Apple.

I have been publicly and openly thinking about moving off iPhone for more than six months. At the time of the December post, none of us knew what the iPhone 4 would look like. We didn’t know if Apple would open up to new carriers. We didn’t know what the Nexus One would offer. We didn’t know about the HTC EVO or the HTC Hero or the HTC Aria or the Droid Incredible. But the writing was on the wall that change was afoot, and we would have to be in wait and see mode. I waited, and what I saw told me that the speed at which Android has improved and the speed at which new models are developed and released is far outpacing Apple. In my personal experience of using the HTC EVO after receiving a free unit from Google I/O, the gaps in the platform were very few, and were more than outweighed by the device’s capabilities. I kept running into ways to use my EVO where my previous generation iPhone could not keep up, and even my handling of the new iPhone 4 was not enough to make me feel I had chosen wrong.

This isn’t to say that it’s impossible the iPhone 4 is the best mobile phone in the world. Maybe it is. Apple’s sense of design and integration is impeccable. They do fantastic work and I do not think they have an equal in hardware. I would never say the HTC EVO is a better hardware device than the iPhone 4, so that discussion is moot. But it is a fantastically capable, flexible device, and I had the choice – yes that word again – to get my wife a different model with a different physical appearance and a different set of capabilities, in the Hero. With Apple, my choice (if you can call it that) is to buy this year’s model or last year’s model, and black versus white (assuming white ever ships).

I also will never tell you that Android is perfect – in software or in hardware. I have seen bugs on the EVO that have impacted button sensitivity, which at times are baffling and directly impact my ability to use the device for minutes at a time. There are background app crashes, and yes, you do have to be smart about how you use apps to avoid draining the battery faster than would be optimal. But I don’t feel that any of these bugs are permanent, nor are they reason to switch back and call it a public loss. It’s certainly not as if I have been blind to iPhones traded in or sent back to the Genius Bar on the other side of the aisle. In my view, I feel that Android is today equally capable to Apple in almost all ways, is more capable in several ways, and is less capable or polished in others.

When I first discussed my thoughts on Android, I made comments saying that if I were a software developer looking to deploy a mobile app, I would look to code for Android first and iPhone and iPad second, to gain highly visible mindshare in a fast growing marketplace. In a piece in the San Jose Mercury News last week, that theory was validated by developers who said the once small pond was turning into an ocean. The article said “early bets on Android and Google are paying off.”

On Thursday, news from ComScore said Android gained market share while Apple, BlackBerry and pretty much everybody else lost share. On Saturday, Barron’s also reported on the growth, saying Android “could eat Apple’s lunch.” This momentum is real on the market share side, no doubt driven by a swath of partners pushing Android-capable devices, while Apple, a personal favorite mind you, is practically going it alone.

Earlier on Saturday, news broke that HTC was not going to “jump into the tablet market” any time soon, as the company looked for a compelling form factor and use case. We’ve seen how Apple launched the iPad and has done tremendously well by it, but the great thing about the Android ecosystem is that HTC’s saying no is not a deathknell for the platform or its customers (including me). If HTC won’t make it, then somebody else will. As we saw with the iPad, rumors of tablets stirred for years until Apple finally launched one. That’s what can happen when only one manufacturer has access to a system. Seeing HTC is not doing a tablet now caused me to shrug, not to writhe in pain. But if they had an exclusive agreement with Google, that would be another story altogether.

The momentum is clear and the option of multiple choices is clear. If I like Android and hate my new carrier, Sprint, I can switch to Verizon and get the Incredible. If I have an aneurysm and love AT&T, I can get the Aria. If I want a small screen, I can do that. If I want a physical keyboard, I can find a device that does that. But for iPhone, I simply would have to take whatever Apple offers and believe that their choices are right for me. I’ve chosen Apple many times and will again in the future, but I don’t think I should buy into a system that restricts my choices when another one is out there that enables my choices.

I switched to Android because I am extending my move away from the desktop and more to the cloud. iTunes does not deserve to be the core of my device any more, as it is simply a utility to rent films and get new apps for the iPad. I do believe the Web to be my future hub, and Google is preparing for that world, while Apple is not. Their devices do great work to get to the Web easily, but once there, I have almost always been pointed to other providers, so now, with Android, for the most part, I can just go to the source.

A bet on iPhone 4 today may be a vote for the best phone of today. But a bet on Android is a bet on the future. I am betting on an ecosystem and an application environment that encourages best of breed developers to move their product to a growing population of smartphones, and I expect to reap the benefits. I have the utmost respect for Steve Jobs, Apple and all the work Cupertino has done to make my family’s lives better, but I think the baton has been passed. I won’t be hanging around hoping they will get reinvigorated, to win on their own against a flotilla of partners on the opposing side. Our family is on the side that is going to win the next five years of mobile.

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Quick Pitch: Publisha is a free browser-based solution that allows integrated publishing across digital platforms with built-in social media, analytics and revenue streams.

Genius Idea: Publisha is a free new platform that enables users to simultaneously format and publish content to the web, Facebook (), RSS, iPhone () and iPad from a single dashboard.

You can import and host your blog or online publication on publisha.com, or keep it at its current domain and simply take advantage of the service’s Facebook, iPhone and iPad publishing features.

The Facebook app is particularly robust. It creates an articles tab you can add to your Facebook Page, complete with a searchable archive, polls and other interactive content. Readers can like, rate and comment on the articles, and respond to polls.

You can also use the platform to publish your content on Publisha’s iPhone and iPad apps; the company has also offered to help “qualifying early adopters” create their own branded apps and drive traffic to their content. The apps host all participating publications on Publisha’s network. To minimize the size of the app, audio and video content are not supported.

Although Publisha is free to use, the company will take a 20% cut of all ad, affiliate and subscription revenue, and charge $2 per every GB of bandwidth used beyond 10GB if you decide to host your publication on Publisha’s website. It will also use 20% of your ad space if you have a free account. Publisha eventually plans to offer two premium packages — priced at $50 and $250 per month, respectively — that offer more bandwidth and take a smaller share of revenue.

Publisha’s Head of Marketing Anna Sjostrom also told us that an aggregated ad service is in the works, which will help match publishers with advertisers. The company also plans to add support for the Kindle and other e-book readers, as well as Ping FM and podcasts.

While we think the costs of Publisha’s services are pretty steep for users who want to build up a publication on publisha.com, we think many could take advantage of Publisha’s Facebook app and keep their sites on a blogging platform like Wordpress () or on their own domains. It also couldn’t hurt to push your content to Publisha’s iPhone and iPad apps in the interest of attracting new readers.

What do you think of Publisha’s offerings? Do you plan to use them for your online publication?

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Simultaneously Publish Your Content to the Web, Facebook, iPhone and iPad

Adobe: Flash to take 3D graphics plunge

July 9th, 2010 No comments

In a move that could keep ties with online games programmers strong, Adobe Systems is adding 3D graphics support to a coming version of its widely used browser plug-in.

The move is an important advancement for Flash, a software foundation that eases programmers’ difficulties with incompatibilities among various operating systems and browsers. And it’ll come none too soon: Flash is under siege by a host of Web standards, and part of that work focuses on 3D Web graphics.

Adobe plans to detail new 3D abilities coming to Flash Player.

(Credit: Screenshot by Stephen Shankland/CNET)

The 3D plans came to light on an agenda for the Adobe Max conference in October. “Join Sebastian Marketsmueller, Adobe Flash Player engineer, for a deep dive into the next-generation 3D API [application programming interface] coming in a future version of Flash Player,” said the agenda item for a talk titled “Flash Player 3D Future.”

The “deep dive” is on the last day of the conference, so it’s reasonable to expect the official news to arrive earlier–say, during the Monday keynote address on October 25.

Later, Flash Player product manager Imbert Thibault offered a bit more of a teaser in a blog post. “I tell you, some serious stuff is coming for 3D developers.

“If you are into 3D development for games, augmented reality, or just interactive stuff like Web sites, you just can’t miss the session,” Thibault said. When exactly the technology will arrive isn’t clear, but Thibault said it is coming “in a future version of the Flash Player.”

Adobe added some 3D features to the 2008 release of Flash Player 10, but they were limited–for example, 2D objects could be manipulated in a 3D space. It wasn’t a full 3D environment like that you’d see in a first-person shooter game or the Second Life virtual world.

And although Adobe invested a lot of time in the newly released Flash Player 10.1, much of that was getting the software to work on hardware-constrained smartphones, where Flash is largely nonexistent today. Because Flash’s interface didn’t change, the version number was only a minor bump upward.

Adding a 3D interface to Flash would be a significant change for programmers, so expect a full step up in release numbers. Version 11 sounds like the right time frame for 3D’s full arrival, given the significant effort under way by many players to rebuild Flash features without relying on Adobe’s proprietary (albeit publicly documented) technology.

Some of what Flash can do is being rebuilt with standards including HTML, the Hypertext Markup Language used to describe Web pages, CSS, the Cascading Style Sheets used for formatting, SVG, the Scalable Vector Graphics technology, and JavaScript, the programming language of choice for Web applications. Examples of the new era coming in recent browsers include support for HTML’s 2D graphics technology called Canvas and CSS’s downloadable typeface technology called WOFF, or Web Open Font Format.

But the future of 3D on the Web is murkier. Major browsers, including Mozilla’s Firefox, Google’s Chrome, and Apple’s Safari, are being fitted right now with 3D technology called WebGL. It’s based on an existing standard, OpenGL, that has wide if not universal support.

3D doesn’t end with WebGL. Google is using it as a foundation for library of code to provide a higher-level Web graphics 3D interface that began as a browser plug-in called O3D.

Here’s the rub, though: Internet Explorer. Although Microsoft is supporting a wide range of new standards in its forthcoming IE9, WebGL is not on the list.

“I think it’s different markup,” said Dean Hachamovitch, general manager of IE, in an earlier interview, meaning that WebGL is antithetical to Microsoft’s current “same markup” marketing push that Web developers should be able to write code for one Web page that works compatibly under all browsers.

Flash sidesteps such browser compatibility issues by providing an interface.

However, it comes with its own baggage, such as the fact that Flash elements on a Web page often are isolated from other elements and behave differently. And Flash brings stability and security concerns, as Apple Chief Executive Steve Jobs pointed out in a high-profile explanation of why Apple banned Flash from the iPhone, iPad, and iPod Touch.

Online games are a major use of Flash, as sites such as Kongregate and Armor Game can attest and as Jobs acknowledged in his letter. Thus far, however, those Flash games tend to be casual affairs; the heavy-duty blockbusters are usually written to take advantage of an operating system’s native interface, such as Microsoft’s Direct3D.

Notably, Google is trying to marry this native approach with Web-based methods using its Native Client technology, which lets Web applications tap into a computer’s processing power.

While Flash isn’t likely at least in the near term to replace games that use the native operating system, getting 3D abilities would substantially expand the range of games developers could write, bringing new depth to those for racing cars or tossing wads of paper into a trash can, for example. Support for hardware acceleration would be essential for Flash 3D graphics, especially on mobile devices with limited processors and battery life.

It’s not clear which of these approaches or others will prevail, so Web developers will have to choose carefully which technology to use for new projects.

It’s clear that change is in the air. Scribd opted to move from Flash to HTML5 and other Web standards for its online document business. But despite Google’s ardent support for the Web standards, YouTube continues to rely on Flash as its primary vehicle for delivering video, and Google has built Flash directly into Chrome.

Adobe hasn’t said when the next version of Flash Player will arrive, but here’s one clue: Adobe Chief Technology Officer Kevin Lynch promised Flash will support Google’s VP8 video compression technology, and he promised that version would arrive within a year of the May release of VP8.

Another big item likely to arrive in the next Flash Player is 64-bit support. Here again, Adobe hasn’t been willing to commit to a time frame, but given that browsers are following the processor and operating system transitions from 32-bit to 64-bit, a release soon must be a priority.

Flash developers obviously have plenty on their plates. But one last thing: don’t assume that Adobe is betting on the Flash horse alone. It’s also getting more involved in the world of HTML and CSS.

At the same Max conference, another talk will focus on creating Web applications with HTML5 and CSS3. “Get up to speed on the latest developments in HTML, JavaScript, and CSS,” the agenda exhorts. “HTML5 has become a powerful way to add interactivity and video to the Web.”

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Lessons From Haiti Will Aid Chile – O’Reilly Radar

February 28th, 2010 No comments

Earlier today Chile experienced a massive earthquake (you can see images of the damage on The BIg Picture). Now, just hours after the event online disaster relief sites are being spun up to aid the survivors. These are all variations on sites that were created to help Haiti survivors.

Google quickly sprang into action reusing many Haiti built-tools:

Crisis Response – This serves as a portal for all of Google’s efforts. From here you can donate to victims, track the news and view the latest maps.

Person Finder: Chile Earthquake – Built on Google’s AppEngine, this app aims to let people enter and retrieve information about people on the ground. It has an API and rich search functonality. News organizations agreed to update Google’s application in an attempt to create a central repository (to avoid the conflicting data issues that happened in the wake of Katrina).

Mapmaker Download – Google’s Mapmaker allows you to map the world from home. It then releases the data under licensing that enables NGOs and relief organizations to use it ( though many find the wording of the license quite confusing their data is actively used).

The Crisis Mappers have also reacted quickly. They have launched chile.ushahidi.com. In Haiti the Ushahidi portal took in tens of thousands of text messages and plotted them on a map for NGOs and relief workers. The Crisis Mappers had teams working around the clock to convert the texts to english. The team is already working to set up shortcodes for the SMS service in Chile. Ushahidi uses Open Street Maps and will be relying on its network of volunteers to build out those maps.

I have written about how these disaster-relief applications were used in Haiti and the people behind them. We are now seeing the emergence of the disastertech platform. As Jesse Robbins says it a pattern of reuse. Each disaster will build upon the previous platforms.

If you want to help Donate, help out online, go to a CrisisCamp (there’s one happening in DC today) or spend some time working on the maps of Chile at Mapmaker or Open Street Map.

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Google ditches Google Gears in Google ditches Google Gears in favor of HTML5 developmentfavor of HTML5 development

February 20th, 2010 No comments

Google is saying “Hello, HTML5” and goodbye, Google Gears. In a message posted on the Gears API Blog, Gears Team member Ian Fette explained why development has been slow:

“If you’ve wondered why there haven’t been many Gears releases or posts on the Gears blog lately, it’s because we’ve shifted our effort towards bringing all of the Gears capabilities into web standards like HTML5.”

Google has opted to focus on HTML5, which promises to offer many of the same online-to-offline functions for web apps currently available in Gears. It’s not yet easy to convert a Gears app to an HTML5 app, but Gears will be dead in the water once that technology arrives. Google will no longer invest resources into adding new features, and it will not support Safari on OS X Snow Leopard or later. Firefox 3.6 and Internet Explorer will be supported for the time being.

The problem with Gears is that it parallels the innovations that are also available in HTML5. Google has been a strong advocate of HTML5 and adding new features to Gears doesn’t make sense if they can focus on adding to what they believe will become a new web standard. Browsers are increasingly adding native support for offline functions for GMail and other services, so the need for Gears is dwindling. Developers and companies who have invested time in support Google Gears won’t like hearing that work will soon be for naught. The best they can do is join the HTML5 bandwagon and hope Google can cook up a worthy conversion tool.

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Google ditches Google Gears in Google ditches Google Gears in favor of HTML5 developmentfavor of HTML5 development

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Dell Mini 5 prototype impressions

February 20th, 2010 No comments

Dell Mini 5 prototype impressions — Engadget

Dell’s puzzled the world for quite some time with its outlandish Mini 5 — at first glance it’s just another Android-based MID, but a quick fiddle with it reveals the full-fledged 3G phone inside. So will it fit in a pocket? Can we carry it around like a normal phone? Is this the future form factor that will bring the ultimate balance between portability and practicality? With such heavy dose of curiosity, we eventually traveled all the way to Shenzhen literally just to grab this prototype. Now, before you read on, do bear in mind that some of its features — especially the OS — may not make it to the final design when it comes out later this year, nor do we know what stage this prototype was at. We good? OK.

Let’s start with the basics: the main specs on our unit include Android 1.6 (which will definitely be obsolete for the final product), five-inch 800 x 480 capacitive touchscreen, Snapdragon QSD8250 chipset (with CPU clocked at 1GHz), Bluetooth, WiFi, GPS and WCDMA radio. Sadly, we have no info on whether the Mini 5 will have other cellular radio options, but it wouldn’t hurt to send Dell a petition regarding this matter. For those who want the dimensions and weight in numbers, it’s about 152mm x 78mm x 10mm at 8 ounces (including the battery, which lasts for almost a day for normal usage on 3G). Memory-wise there’s 405MB RAM and 1.63GB of internal storage — a slight let-down for the latter, so let’s hope the retail unit will be given a more generous dose of silicon. You can add a microSD card next to the battery on the back, but it appears that the mysterious second card slot we saw in the earlier teardown only gave us false hope — we couldn’t find a way to get to it without prying open the housing. Connection to your computer relies on a proprietary port — similar but slightly larger than the iPod’s — to USB cable, which may suggest that we will see some more peripherals made for the Mini 5 and its future siblings.

Software, buttons and keyboard

We won’t bore you with a full list of preinstalled Android apps on our Mini 5, but there are indeed a few that are worth mentioning: the usual bundle including Google Mail, YouTube, Amazon MP3, WebKit browser (with pinch-to-zoom but no Flash support), Google Maps (no pinch-to-zoom, boo!), K-9 Mail (which supports Exchange server) and Quickoffice (a file browser that can also view Word, Excel and PowerPoint documents). For multimedia there’s the standard Android music app, a Gallery app by ArcSoft (pinch-to-zoom supported), and a three-year trial of the forthcoming CyberLink Live for Android that gives you “instant access to your photos, music, and video stored on your home computers.” There’s no social networking integration (like MOTOBLUR and Sense) as such, but you can use the preloaded Meebo IM for chatting on AIM, Facebook, Google Talk, ICQ, Windows Live Messenger, Yahoo, etc. If you want to be discrete about your gigantic phone, you may find the Voice Control app by Nuance handy for voice-dialing — it can be triggered by holding down the button on the bundled handsfree earphones.

Many of the apps support both portrait and landscape modes, although landscape mode only works one way (with the dock connector pointing downwards), which may become a nuisance for those who like to lie on the bed while using their phones. The dialer app — as pictured above — is only available in portrait mode and does look like work in progress, plus we haven’t found a way to initiate or receive video calls, leaving the front-facing 640 x 480 camera pretty useless except for some casual self-portraits. Hopefully the final software build will have these fixed. As for normal phone calls we’ve found voice quality on both ends to be satisfactory.

Going back to the homescreen, we see that Dell’s done some skinning — the top bar houses a button for triggering the apps menu (unlike the traditional pull-up menu on most other Android devices), along with a homescreen switcher button and notifications button. The shortcut icons are contained in shaded grey squares. Only a couple of widgets got our attention: Power Control allows us to quickly change the screen brightness and turn on / off various wireless connections, while the cute TasKiller widgets let us kill apps one by one or all in one go. The widgets for Twitter, Facebook and RSS are useful, but like those on other Android phones, they still lack options for refresh rates. Any chance that we can have enhanced versions, Dell?

The only physical buttons on the Mini 5 all reside on the top edge (when held as pictured above). Starting from the left we have a 3.5mm headphone jack, followed by buttons for volume, power and camera (which has two stages: focus and then capture). On the right of screen there are three touch-sensitive buttons with haptic feedback: back, menu and home. Like other Android phones, the on-screen keyboard can be triggered by holding down the menu button, and as you can see above, the landscape version has a numpad that you may or may not like — frankly, the keyboard offset is pretty annoying since we need to stretch our right thumb across the numpad for handheld typing, plus the keys could’ve been bigger if the numpad wasn’t there. We think those two factors are to be blamed for our constant typos, so a numpad-less option would totally make our day. That said, when the phone’s placed on the desk, we typed better on the landscape keyboard using our index fingers. Similarly, the portrait keyboard performed better with our thumbs while we held the device.

Multimedia experience

Given the MID form factor and that gorgeous five-inch screen, we immediately loaded a few MP4 videos of various resolutions (1080p, 720p and 480p) to see what the Mini 5 could take. Annoyingly, our Mini 5’s default video player could only handle MP4V video codec, so we had to convert our test videos, including the MP4 files that were compiled by iMovie (which encodes in H.264). On the contrary, Carrypad’s heard from Dell at MWC that the final product will support “H.264 and other codecs.” Even then, the device failed to open our 1080p files, but that’s not the end of the world considering 720p is already plentiful for the 800 x 480 screen — we had a 7Mbps 720p video playing smoothly with just the odd stutter. On a similar matter, the preloaded YouTube app performed nicely for us, except for the lack of higher quality playback options to make full use of the large screen.

Moving on to audio: the Mini 5 has a mono speaker on the back that sounds loud and surprisingly clear, but naturally, the bundled earphones sound even better — we’d scale it to somewhere between the levels of the iPod buds and Apple’s in-ear headphones. Fans of stereo Bluetooth headphones will be pleased to know that our Mini 5 supports A2DP and AVRCP, which are particularly useful for devices of such size.

The main camera offers five-megapixel pictures of reasonable quality, along with decent 640 x 480 video capture but with slight rolling shutter effect (aka “jelly motion”). The accompanying camera app has a wealth of settings for both modes: scene, white balance, brightness, contrast, and resolution. Extra settings for photo mode include flash, self-timer, multi-shot, shutter sound, GPS location and flicker adjustment, whereas video mode has options for video format (MPEG-4 and H.263). Both support digital zoom of up to 4x. Once a picture is taken, you get a three-second preview along with options to edit, send, set as wallpaper / contact icon and delete. You get the same options by accessing the photos on the left-hand bar. In edit mode you can rotate, crop, adjust colors, draw, resize and add various goodies (effects, frames, text and clipart). Thankfully, there are undo and redo buttons, too.

Here are a couple of videos and some photos captured by the five-megapixel camera:

Dell Mini 5 prototype camera photo samples

Comfort

Understandably, most people are concerned about whether this 5-inch tablet would fit inside their pocket. We’re happy to tell you that it snuggled nicely in our jeans’ pockets, which is most likely to do with the device’s sensible thickness and our lack of tight pants. Apart from the slight exposure (as pictured below) and the occasional struggle when walking up stairs, we’ve had no other issues with pocketing our Mini 5. A more popular concern would be whether you’d look like a dork when holding the monstrous phone right next to your face. To be honest, it’s not too bad, except the user would most likely be more concious about the size, simply because you’d have to stretch your fingers a bit to accommodate the unusually large footprint and weight — you can see the size better demoed in the earlier walkthrough video. Just keep that to yourself and you’ll be fine — so far most blokes who’ve seen and touched our Mini 5 have said they want one, so this phone is already quite the masculine symbol. And yes, the phone makes a great tool for chatting up the ladies, too (although they’ve all said it’s too big and heavy after playing with it; perhaps the Mini 3 will strike their fancy?).

Wrap-up

Dell may not be the first to forage into the scene of oversized smartphones (see HTC Advantage and HTC Universal), but it looks like the combination of Android, Snapdragon, 3G affordability and resurrection of the tablet trend may give the Mini 5 a great potential. We found the five-inch form factor to be neither too big nor too small, perfect for browsing the web, watching videos (watch out, Archos 5!), car navigation and reading ebooks on the go. Even the battery life matches most current 3G phones, despite the larger screen and faster CPU. We haven’t seen one yet, but a dock for this phone would be a great addition as it’s just big enough to serve as a digital picture frame, if not a side monitor for your social networking apps or emails. Update: the dock exists!

So, would we get one? Absolutely. Would we buy one? Depends — Dell’s been pretty tight-lipped about pricing, and some of you have even expressed concerns about the possibility of this WCDMA phone heading to AT&T. As mentioned before, the firmware on the actual phone will definitely be different when it comes out at some point this year, so hopefully between now and then Dell can work in some social networking integration, a podcast subscriber, a prettier dialer app, a better keyboard and Google Maps with pinch to zoom. As for hardware, all we ask for is a better camera and larger internal storage. Cheers for now, Michael!

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Dell Mini 5 prototype impressions

Categories: Uncategorized Tags: ajax, android, emeetings, facebook, final, google, internet, internet-video, iphone, ipod, landscape, microsoft, mini, mozilla-firefox, phone, software, youtube

Google & Audi take Google services in a car to the next level in the new Audi A8

December 26th, 2009 No comments

Nowadays, it seems like everything is connected to the Internet: mobile phones, laptops, netbooks, portable game consoles, personal navigation devices. Think of how applications such as Google Maps for mobile have changed the way you find locally relevant businesses or addresses, or real-time traffic along your route. We can even get online from 35,000 feet while on an airplane, or while traveling at 300 km/h on a train. Google has worked with the automotive industry to bring services like Local Search into cars in the past – now we’re teaming up with Audi to bring an entirely new type of technology into the car: Google Earth.

With their newly unveiled Audi A8, Audi is the first car manufacturer to bring Google Earth directly into the vehicle and to combine that with a set of useful Google services. We’ve worked closely with them to create a compelling in-car experience integrated with the Audi navigation system. You’ll be able to enjoy 3D satellite imagery, terrain information and a wealth of additional geo information relevant to your current location: layers like Wikipedia to learn more about your surroundings or Panoramio images to get another view.

To help you figure out where you want to go and how to get there, we’ve also brought Google Maps and Local Search into the A8, and linking it to your desk. You can send business listings directly from Google Maps to your car: search for an address at your desk, send it to the car, and by the time you go to the parking lot your car will know where to go. While in the car, you can use Google Local Search in the same rich quality as at your desk. Imagine you get hungry on the way or want to find a cinema – simply perform a live Google search on your car navigation system and immediately get up-to-date, rich and relevant results.

Ghirardelli Square, San Francisco – Send popular destinations directly from your desk into your car

Google Earth has come a long way from when it received “oohs” and “aahs” during its demonstration for Googlers and the public in 2005: it has now been downloaded over 500 million times on the desktop, is available in 41 languages, and has a mobile version for iPhone. As Germans, with a natural born passion for cars, we’re very excited about this newest milestone and we hope that drivers will have that same “ooh” and “aah” reaction when exploring Google Earth from the Audi A8.

Cabo da Roca, Portugal – Pushing your car navigation display to the next level

Our mission to organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful is paid into by the efforts of Google’s automotive team – they always are trying to find new ways to make relevant information accessible and useful – now also in your car.

Herzlich willkommen, Audi!

Posted by Jens Redmer, Principal, New Business Development and Wieland Holfelder, Engineering Director; Google Germany

Read more here:
Google & Audi take Google services in a car to the next level in the new Audi A8

Categories: Uncategorized Tags: ajax, artima-articles, business, collaboration, emeetings, facebook, firefox, freelance-jobs, google, internet, internet-video, iphone, microsoft, mozilla-firefox, software, youtube

Google & Audi take Google services in a car to the next level in the new Audi A8

December 26th, 2009 No comments

Nowadays, it seems like everything is connected to the Internet: mobile phones, laptops, netbooks, portable game consoles, personal navigation devices. Think of how applications such as Google Maps for mobile have changed the way you find locally relevant businesses or addresses, or real-time traffic along your route. We can even get online from 35,000 feet while on an airplane, or while traveling at 300 km/h on a train. Google has worked with the automotive industry to bring services like Local Search into cars in the past – now we’re teaming up with Audi to bring an entirely new type of technology into the car: Google Earth.

With their newly unveiled Audi A8, Audi is the first car manufacturer to bring Google Earth directly into the vehicle and to combine that with a set of useful Google services. We’ve worked closely with them to create a compelling in-car experience integrated with the Audi navigation system. You’ll be able to enjoy 3D satellite imagery, terrain information and a wealth of additional geo information relevant to your current location: layers like Wikipedia to learn more about your surroundings or Panoramio images to get another view.

To help you figure out where you want to go and how to get there, we’ve also brought Google Maps and Local Search into the A8, and linking it to your desk. You can send business listings directly from Google Maps to your car: search for an address at your desk, send it to the car, and by the time you go to the parking lot your car will know where to go. While in the car, you can use Google Local Search in the same rich quality as at your desk. Imagine you get hungry on the way or want to find a cinema – simply perform a live Google search on your car navigation system and immediately get up-to-date, rich and relevant results.

Ghirardelli Square, San Francisco – Send popular destinations directly from your desk into your car

Google Earth has come a long way from when it received “oohs” and “aahs” during its demonstration for Googlers and the public in 2005: it has now been downloaded over 500 million times on the desktop, is available in 41 languages, and has a mobile version for iPhone. As Germans, with a natural born passion for cars, we’re very excited about this newest milestone and we hope that drivers will have that same “ooh” and “aah” reaction when exploring Google Earth from the Audi A8.

Cabo da Roca, Portugal – Pushing your car navigation display to the next level

Our mission to organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful is paid into by the efforts of Google’s automotive team – they always are trying to find new ways to make relevant information accessible and useful – now also in your car.

Herzlich willkommen, Audi!

Posted by Jens Redmer, Principal, New Business Development and Wieland Holfelder, Engineering Director; Google Germany

Google & Audi take Google services in a car to the next level in the new Audi A8

Categories: Uncategorized Tags: ajax, artima-articles, business, collaboration, emeetings, facebook, freelance-jobs, google, internet, internet-video, iphone, microsoft, mozilla-firefox, software, windows-vista, youtube

Google & Audi take Google services in a car to the next level in the new Audi A8

December 26th, 2009 No comments

Nowadays, it seems like everything is connected to the Internet: mobile phones, laptops, netbooks, portable game consoles, personal navigation devices. Think of how applications such as Google Maps for mobile have changed the way you find locally relevant businesses or addresses, or real-time traffic along your route. We can even get online from 35,000 feet while on an airplane, or while traveling at 300 km/h on a train. Google has worked with the automotive industry to bring services like Local Search into cars in the past – now we’re teaming up with Audi to bring an entirely new type of technology into the car: Google Earth.

With their newly unveiled Audi A8, Audi is the first car manufacturer to bring Google Earth directly into the vehicle and to combine that with a set of useful Google services. We’ve worked closely with them to create a compelling in-car experience integrated with the Audi navigation system. You’ll be able to enjoy 3D satellite imagery, terrain information and a wealth of additional geo information relevant to your current location: layers like Wikipedia to learn more about your surroundings or Panoramio images to get another view.

To help you figure out where you want to go and how to get there, we’ve also brought Google Maps and Local Search into the A8, and linking it to your desk. You can send business listings directly from Google Maps to your car: search for an address at your desk, send it to the car, and by the time you go to the parking lot your car will know where to go. While in the car, you can use Google Local Search in the same rich quality as at your desk. Imagine you get hungry on the way or want to find a cinema – simply perform a live Google search on your car navigation system and immediately get up-to-date, rich and relevant results.

Ghirardelli Square, San Francisco – Send popular destinations directly from your desk into your car

Google Earth has come a long way from when it received “oohs” and “aahs” during its demonstration for Googlers and the public in 2005: it has now been downloaded over 500 million times on the desktop, is available in 41 languages, and has a mobile version for iPhone. As Germans, with a natural born passion for cars, we’re very excited about this newest milestone and we hope that drivers will have that same “ooh” and “aah” reaction when exploring Google Earth from the Audi A8.

Cabo da Roca, Portugal – Pushing your car navigation display to the next level

Our mission to organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful is paid into by the efforts of Google’s automotive team – they always are trying to find new ways to make relevant information accessible and useful – now also in your car.

Herzlich willkommen, Audi!

Posted by Jens Redmer, Principal, New Business Development and Wieland Holfelder, Engineering Director; Google Germany

See the original post:
Google & Audi take Google services in a car to the next level in the new Audi A8

Categories: Uncategorized Tags: ajax, artima-articles, business, collaboration, emeetings, facebook, firefox, freelance-jobs, google, internet, internet-video, iphone, microsoft, mozilla-firefox, software, youtube

Google & Audi take Google services in a car to the next level in the new Audi A8

December 26th, 2009 No comments

Nowadays, it seems like everything is connected to the Internet: mobile phones, laptops, netbooks, portable game consoles, personal navigation devices. Think of how applications such as Google Maps for mobile have changed the way you find locally relevant businesses or addresses, or real-time traffic along your route. We can even get online from 35,000 feet while on an airplane, or while traveling at 300 km/h on a train. Google has worked with the automotive industry to bring services like Local Search into cars in the past – now we’re teaming up with Audi to bring an entirely new type of technology into the car: Google Earth.

With their newly unveiled Audi A8, Audi is the first car manufacturer to bring Google Earth directly into the vehicle and to combine that with a set of useful Google services. We’ve worked closely with them to create a compelling in-car experience integrated with the Audi navigation system. You’ll be able to enjoy 3D satellite imagery, terrain information and a wealth of additional geo information relevant to your current location: layers like Wikipedia to learn more about your surroundings or Panoramio images to get another view.

To help you figure out where you want to go and how to get there, we’ve also brought Google Maps and Local Search into the A8, and linking it to your desk. You can send business listings directly from Google Maps to your car: search for an address at your desk, send it to the car, and by the time you go to the parking lot your car will know where to go. While in the car, you can use Google Local Search in the same rich quality as at your desk. Imagine you get hungry on the way or want to find a cinema – simply perform a live Google search on your car navigation system and immediately get up-to-date, rich and relevant results.

Ghirardelli Square, San Francisco – Send popular destinations directly from your desk into your car

Google Earth has come a long way from when it received “oohs” and “aahs” during its demonstration for Googlers and the public in 2005: it has now been downloaded over 500 million times on the desktop, is available in 41 languages, and has a mobile version for iPhone. As Germans, with a natural born passion for cars, we’re very excited about this newest milestone and we hope that drivers will have that same “ooh” and “aah” reaction when exploring Google Earth from the Audi A8.

Cabo da Roca, Portugal – Pushing your car navigation display to the next level

Our mission to organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful is paid into by the efforts of Google’s automotive team – they always are trying to find new ways to make relevant information accessible and useful – now also in your car.

Herzlich willkommen, Audi!

Posted by Jens Redmer, Principal, New Business Development and Wieland Holfelder, Engineering Director; Google Germany

Excerpt from:
Google & Audi take Google services in a car to the next level in the new Audi A8

Categories: Uncategorized Tags: ajax, artima-articles, business, collaboration, emeetings, facebook, freelance-jobs, google, internet, internet-video, iphone, microsoft, mozilla-firefox, software, windows-vista, youtube

Google & Audi take Google services in a car to the next level in the new Audi A8

December 26th, 2009 No comments

Nowadays, it seems like everything is connected to the Internet: mobile phones, laptops, netbooks, portable game consoles, personal navigation devices. Think of how applications such as Google Maps for mobile have changed the way you find locally relevant businesses or addresses, or real-time traffic along your route. We can even get online from 35,000 feet while on an airplane, or while traveling at 300 km/h on a train. Google has worked with the automotive industry to bring services like Local Search into cars in the past – now we’re teaming up with Audi to bring an entirely new type of technology into the car: Google Earth.

With their newly unveiled Audi A8, Audi is the first car manufacturer to bring Google Earth directly into the vehicle and to combine that with a set of useful Google services. We’ve worked closely with them to create a compelling in-car experience integrated with the Audi navigation system. You’ll be able to enjoy 3D satellite imagery, terrain information and a wealth of additional geo information relevant to your current location: layers like Wikipedia to learn more about your surroundings or Panoramio images to get another view.

To help you figure out where you want to go and how to get there, we’ve also brought Google Maps and Local Search into the A8, and linking it to your desk. You can send business listings directly from Google Maps to your car: search for an address at your desk, send it to the car, and by the time you go to the parking lot your car will know where to go. While in the car, you can use Google Local Search in the same rich quality as at your desk. Imagine you get hungry on the way or want to find a cinema – simply perform a live Google search on your car navigation system and immediately get up-to-date, rich and relevant results.

Ghirardelli Square, San Francisco – Send popular destinations directly from your desk into your car

Google Earth has come a long way from when it received “oohs” and “aahs” during its demonstration for Googlers and the public in 2005: it has now been downloaded over 500 million times on the desktop, is available in 41 languages, and has a mobile version for iPhone. As Germans, with a natural born passion for cars, we’re very excited about this newest milestone and we hope that drivers will have that same “ooh” and “aah” reaction when exploring Google Earth from the Audi A8.

Cabo da Roca, Portugal – Pushing your car navigation display to the next level

Our mission to organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful is paid into by the efforts of Google’s automotive team – they always are trying to find new ways to make relevant information accessible and useful – now also in your car.

Herzlich willkommen, Audi!

Posted by Jens Redmer, Principal, New Business Development and Wieland Holfelder, Engineering Director; Google Germany

The rest is here:
Google & Audi take Google services in a car to the next level in the new Audi A8

Categories: Uncategorized Tags: ajax, artima-articles, business, collaboration, emeetings, facebook, freelance-jobs, google, internet, internet-video, iphone, microsoft, mozilla-firefox, software, windows-vista, youtube

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