Hasta La Gadget!

Updated to include Intel’s comments about current MeeGo devices

It hasn’t been smooth sailing for MeeGo, Intel and Nokia’s combined effort to develop a Linux-based operating system for mobile devices. A key executive departure and news that smartphones running the operating system won’t be available until sometime next year has left Intel and Nokia fighting to stay on course.

“The community around MeeGo is very strong,” Suzy Ramirez, an Intel spokesperson told Wired.com. “We are on schedule and MeeGo will be available for TVs and in-car entertainment systems soon, and other devices next year.”

MeeGo has had a tough week.  On Tuesday, Ari Jaaksi, the vice-president of Nokia’s MeeGo division, confirmed he will leave the company for “personal reasons.” Last month, Nokia went through a change of guard when CEO Olli-Pekka Kallasvuo stepped down to be replaced by former Microsoft executive Stephen Elop.

A Nokia spokesperson has said the company’s MeeGo roadmap remains unchanged.

Meanwhile, Intel vice-president Doug Fisher told Forbes that the company expects to show the first smartphones running MeeGo operating systems early next year and have them in hands of consumers by mid-2011.

“All this has added confusion to MeeGo’s prospects, especially given the tremendous stride being made by alternative operating systems such as Android and iOS,” said Avi Greengart, an analyst with research and consulting firm Current Analysis. “Given the management changes at Nokia and the possibility that MeeGo phones could be delayed, it leaves question marks about the future of MeeGo.”

Over the last three years, the rise of smartphones and the growing popularity of tablets and streaming media players has opened the doors for new operating systems that can promise a better user experience. For instance, Android, which launched in 2008 for smartphones, has now spread to tablets and has even birthed Google TV, a platform that combines cable TV programming with sites from the internet.

MeeGo hopes to do something similar. But it started small. Last year Intel started a project called  Moblin that would be a Linux-based operating system designed specifically for netbooks. Separately, Nokia had been working on a Linux-based software platform called Maemo for smartphones and tablets.

At the Mobile World Congress conference in February this year, the two companies decided to combine efforts and spawn a new OS called MeeGo. MeeGo is now hosted by the Linux Foundation and has expanded its reach to phones, tablets, TVs and even in-car entertainment systems.

Both companies desperately want to control a next-generation mobile OS. Nokia has heavily relied on Symbian, which enjoys massive popularity worldwide but is saddled with an archaic, needlessly complicated interface that hasn’t adapted well to the world of touchscreen phones. And Intel has seen success supplying its Atom chips to the netbook market, but hasn’t made significant inroads into smartphones; it’s hoping that an OS might help it leverage its chip business into a new market.

In the next few weeks, Intel plans to release a version of the nascent OS so developers can start creating the user interface required to put MeeGo on different devices. MeeGo with an Intel-developed skin is expected after that. MeeGo will have its first developers’ conference in Ireland in November.

“From a product perspective, we expect to show smartphones and tablets on MeeGo in mid-2011,” says Ramirez.

Already some intrepid device makers have released MeeGo-based devices. German company WeTab is offering a MeeGo based tablet, while U.K. company Amino has shown a TV that runs MeeGo.

Still Greengart isn’t convinced that plans for MeeGo won’t change. Intel is dependent on Nokia to deliver the hardware that will bring MeeGo to consumers and Nokia’s big management changes could affect MeeGo’s future, he says.

So far, Nokia has said that it plans to use the Symbian OS for low and mid-level smartphones and build MeeGo into high-end devices that are more focused on computing.

“The problem is that Nokia executives, including the CEO who talked about this strategy just a week or two ago, are  not there. And who knows what’s going in the company,” says Greengart. “The future of MeeGo depends on how much Nokia and Intel are willing to stick to their plans in a fast-changing world.”

See Also:

• Nokia Phones Hacked to Run Android
• Kno Creates 14-inch Tablet for Students
• Linux Chief Sounds Off on Android, Apple and App Stores
• Letter From Silicon Valley: Doing the Math on Android vs. Apple

Photo: MeeGo Phone browser (Steve Paine/Flickr)

Playing the Eigenharp, while driving around the world in a Ford Fiesta.

Editor’s note: Wired.com contributor Jeremy Hart is making a 60-day, 15,000-mile drive around the world with a few mates in a pair of Ford Fiestas. He’s filing occasional reports from the road.

Another week, another continent. As I write this (on my trusty iPad) we are blasting across Europe. The Fiesta World Tour 2010 has left The New World behind and is heading deep into the Old World. The Middle East is on the horizon and Asia is not far off.

The last week in the U.S. and Canada was nothing but gadget hassle. The once-wonderful Virgin MiFi became a liability for all of us when it refused to do the one job it was designed to do and had, up to then, been doing brilliantly: Be a mobile Wi-Fi hotspot in our Ford Fiesta.

Sleep is a luxury on a global drive so I did not enjoy wasting an hour to the useless Virgin Mobile help desk, only to be told their server was down. The advice from the same desk the next morning was to reboot the device using a paperclip. Not easy at 70mph on I-95.

But for the last day of the U.S. leg the MiFi finally started working and found me (via my iPad) a great place for breakfast between Boston and NYC: the Cosmic Omelet in Manchester CT. Then it helped guide us (when the TomTom and in-car satellite navigation system did not) to the spot I had found on GoogleEarth from which to film our arrival in The Big Apple.

The SPOT tracker uses GPS and satellite signals to let you track our location wherever we go.

The second technical hiccup came when I gave up trying to ignite my Spot Satellite Messenger for you guys to follow our progress. I called FindMeSpot’s 800 number, only to be told the one I had bought from BestBuy in LA was a recalled unit. The Spot public relations people FedExed one to me in time for me to get it going for the last few miles of the U.S. trip. It is now well up and running and you can see where we have been at. But I will turn it off when we are in more sensitive areas.

Leg 2 started in Ireland, on the far side of The Pond, at the Lisdoonvarna matchmaking festival. (Don’t ask.) I’d hoped for a Guinness gadget of some kind from Dublin but only when we got across to Wales did the gadgets start ramping up.

Welsh is a revived language, and it’s thriving so well that there is even a Welsh version of Scrabble. There are no Z’s, but you get maximum points if you can use the A. We played it on the railway station of the town with what I believe is the longest URL the world.

In England we stopped by our headquarters in the Inc office where gadgets galore were stacked for our next leg.

• Iridium satellite phone
• Camping Gaz car cool box
• Eigenharp computer instrument
• Handpresso pump action espresso maker
• Car kettle (a hand espresso machine needs hot water)
• European TomTom app for the iPhone
• Apple wireless keyboard for the iPad
• 2 Lifeventure first aid kits

Nissan has responded to rumors that high demand for its Leaf EV in Japan could cause the company to limit delivery in the United States to just around 3,000 units by the end of March, 2011. That rumor sprang from comments made by a Mossy Nissan general manager, and luckily for electric vehicle lovers in the States, seem to be wholly untrue. Mark Perry, Nissan’s director of product planning says that the statement from Mossy Nissan was “purely speculative,” and that product allocation is decided based on customer orders. Furthermore, he says the company is still targeting around 25,000 units for the US by the end of 2011. So now we can all sleep better: the nightmare has seemingly ended.

Nissan rep confirms delivery of 25,000 Leaf EVs to US by the end of 2011 originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 24 Aug 2010 15:41:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink Autoblog Green  |  Nissan Leaf blog  | Email this | Comments

As a cyclist, I see parking meters as nothing more than a place to chain my bike. For motorists, they are hungry monsters that need feeding regularly, if you can even find a free one to begin with. San Francisco’s new meters are set to change that, adjusting the prices automatically depending on demand.

Part of the two-year SFpark experiment, the new meters will detect how in-demand are the spaces they govern. Based on this info, the prices will be adjusted up and down, from 25-cents up to $6 per hour. The plan is to price parking at a rate that keeps around 20% of spaces free. This will mean that you can always find a spot, and will in turn mean less people are driving round and round the block looking for a space.

The prices won’t fluctuate wildly during the course of a day. The changes will be slow and self-leveling: the prices will change once a month or less, and then only by 50-cents at a time. You’ll be spared running into a store to make change, too: the new meters will also accept credit-cards and soon, an SFMTA card.

It seems that everyone will win here, although I’m a little worried about one of the new machines being introduced. Along with the traditional meters on sticks, there is a new meter which sits at the side of the road, governing all the spots on a street. It’s more efficient for cars, but where will I lock my bike?

Demand-Responsive Pricing [SFpark via Switched]

See Also:

• May 13, 1935: Enter the Parking Meter
• Smart Parking Meters Hacked — Free Parking For All!
• Cell Phones, Internet Bring Parking Meters into the 21st Century …

Follow us for real-time tech news: Charlie Sorrel and Gadget Lab on Twitter.

On Friday, during a visit from President Obama to its Detroit-Hamtramck plant, GM announced some good news for all the Volt fans out there. Production from 2011 to 2012 for the electric vehicle — originally slated at around 30,000 units — has been boosted to a projected 45,000 units, a 50 percent increase. The Volt, which has a range of 340 miles (on gas — it goes approximately 40 miles on battery alone) is being produced at the Detroit-Hamtramck plant, which received $336 million in investments to prepare for the production. The full press release is after the break.

Continue reading General Motors upping Chevy Volt production by 50 percent in 2011

General Motors upping Chevy Volt production by 50 percent in 2011 originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 02 Aug 2010 02:03:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink Green Car Reports  |  GM  | Email this | Comments