Google quietly launched a new website a few weeks ago called What Do You Love, otherwise known as WDYL. Today, the company made it officially by announcing it on the Official Google Blog. The new search tool combines almost all of Google’s services into one page. According to Google, the goal was to find a way […]
Apparently, when Motorola was trying to figure out why its Xoom has struggled so mightily in against the iPad 2, the company didn’t focus on its high starting price or slightly heftier hardware. Instead, it decided the issue was the screen — in particular the format — and rumor has it that Moto is working on a new tablet (probably not the Xoom 2 we’ve glimpsed) that ditches the 16:9 ratio for the more square 4:3 found on Apple’s slate. Supposedly the non-widescreen device will sport an extremely pixel-dense 2048 x 1536, 10-inch display and run Ice Cream Sandwich when it lands later this year or early next. We’re not entirely convinced this will pan out and, honestly, we’ve always preferred the more more modern widescreen format — but, if the iPad sells with it’s old-school ratio we suppose it’s worth a shot.
Motorola rumored to be hard at work on high-res, 4:3 Ice Cream Sandwich tablet originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 13 Jul 2011 17:42:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Too often, “expected summer launches” translate into “the very last day possible,” so we were happy to learn that Sprint’s latest collaboration with Motorola, the Photon 4G, will be available July 31st for the usual $200 on contract. To say the upcoming Android device will come loaded is an understatement: it’ll ship with Gingerbread, a Tegra 2 dual-core 1GHz CPU, one full GB of RAM, a 4.3-inch qHD display, dual cameras (8 megapixel rear, VGA front) and 16GB of internal memory. Not surprisingly, Sprint’s also integrating its signature Sprint ID feature into the user interface. While the device will be available to the general public on July 31st, Premier Customers will have the golden opportunity to get it online three days earlier. If you were perched on the fence about the HTC EVO 3D, this may be the only Sprint phone that’s ready to push you in either direction. Full PR following the break.
Continue reading Motorola’s Photon 4G ships to Sprint on July 31st: $200 on contract
Motorola’s Photon 4G ships to Sprint on July 31st: $200 on contract originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 13 Jul 2011 16:57:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
Still eager to do business with a company that’ll lock your account on a whim and side with the buyer regardless of the facts? Splendid! If that’s you, PayPal would love for you to know that it has announced a new phone-to-phone NFC payment application at MobileBeat 2011, offering Nexus S owners the ability to request and transfer funds between handsets. As of now, the functionality is quite limited — there’s just a single smartphone with the hardware capabilities to take advantage, and there’s no phone-to-anything not a phone supported as of now. In other words, this isn’t exactly a Square killer just yet, but it’s definitely something for the sued folks at Google to pay attention to. We’re also hearing that P2P transactions through PayPal are gratis “if using a bank account or existing balance in the customer’s PayPal account,” but no one’s coughing up details on what’ll be deducted in the form of fees when using a different method of payment. A video demo of the 48 second transaction awaits you after the break, but sadly, there’s no details on how soon it’ll be made available to the public.
Update: It’ll be available in the Android Market “this summer.”
Continue reading PayPal announces phone-to-phone NFC support, cuts eyes at Google (video)
PayPal announces phone-to-phone NFC support, cuts eyes at Google (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 13 Jul 2011 14:54:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Gallery: Sony S1 hands-on!
Gallery: Sony S2 hands-on!
Continue reading Sony S1 and S2 hands-on
Sony S1 and S2 hands-on originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 13 Jul 2011 13:19:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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It’s been a few months since Sony made its (tardy) entrance into the tablet market, and since then it hasn’t been sharing details so much as teasing them in whimsical, perplexing ads. Finally, the outfit’s ready to take specifics. We’re sitting at a roundtable with Sony executives, and just learned that its clamshell S2 tablet is headed to AT&T’s “4G” (read: HSPA+) network, confirming what we already suspected after peeping a tell-tale FCC report. Sony’s is quick to remind us that “S2” is just a codename, so don’t be surprised if it surfaces with a completely different moniker. Otherwise, the company didn’t get too chatty: we still don’t know how or when AT&T will begin selling it nor how much it will cost on contract. Also still MIA: details on when, where, and for how much you’ll be able to nab that folded magazine-inspired S1. Check out the press release below.
Continue reading Sony’s S2 tablet coming to AT&T, price and availability remain a mystery
Sony’s S2 tablet coming to AT&T, price and availability remain a mystery originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 13 Jul 2011 09:45:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Remember when your legitimate emails were flanked by dozens of grammatically nightmarish blurbs, peddling pills, x-rated services, and Nigerian scams? If you use Gmail, most of that garbage no longer arrives in your inbox, instead making its way to a spam folder, where it’s held for a month before ending its journey at the Google graveyard. Now, Mountain View is applying that same concept to your Google Voice calls, flagging unsolicited calls, texts, and voicemails, then booting them to a spam folder. The company’s servers use collected data from other users marking similar messages as spam, as well as propriety identification tools, to help ensure that those generic creditor or vacation sweepstakes calls never make it to your phone. And like GMail messages, misdirected calls can be marked as “Not Spam” from within the Spam folder, letting them slip through the fence the next time around. GV users can simply check the box next to “Global Spam filtering” on the Calls tab to activate the feature, or hit up the source link for the full scoop.
Google Voice adds spam filter, lets solicitors get caught in the web originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 12 Jul 2011 23:11:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
As you can imagine, AT&T was eager to show off its newly minted HTC Status at its holiday preview event, right up there along with a blue Xperia Play and the HP Touchpad 4G. If you’ll recall, the Status is the HTC ChaCha that was announced a few months back, and what makes it stand apart from other Android handsets is a dedicated Facebook button for liking things on these very internets. In AT&T’s case, it’s also the carrier’s first phone running Android 2.3. We’re taking one home to review, but in the meantime we couldn’t resist giving it the full hands-on treatment. You know the drill: photos below, video and early thoughts past the break.
Gallery: HTC Status Hands-On (AT&T)
Continue reading HTC Status hands-on (video)
HTC Status hands-on (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 12 Jul 2011 18:23:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Android’s Market now has an entirely new user interface. Photo courtesy of Google
Look out, iTunes, the Android Market is getting a face-lift.
Google launched an entirely new user interface for its mobile platform Tuesday, completely changing the layout of the application portal.
“The new Market client is designed to better showcase top apps and games, engage users with an improved UI, and provide a quicker path to downloading or purchasing your products,” wrote Android developer Eric Chu in a blog post.
Navigating the differing app categories on the phone-based market requires a swipe left or right, which switches to new, tile-based menu screens. The name and price of a given app you’ve chosen moves to the top of the screen. In addition to apps and games, you’ll also be able to browse movies and books available for purchase from the Market.
Android has long faced platform criticism for its Market setup, as both users and developers alike have had difficulty finding the programs they want in the 200,000+ app-packed Android Market. Apple, by contrast, has long promoted featured and popular apps in its iTunes-based App Store, a one-stop shop for all things iOS. But Google is trying to counter the complaints: At its I/O developer conference in May, Google rolled out a streamlined, app-promoting look for the Market’s web store, with the inclusion of categories like “Top Grossing, Trending” and other ‘top’ apps.
Google claims its latest changes will appeal to developers’ bottom line. The new layout enables two-click purchases of apps, eliminating as much friction as possible so customers can purchase apps faster and easier.
Typically, developers have started creating apps in an iOS environment, perfecting the program their before eventually making it over to the Android ecosystem. But Android co-founder Rich Miner says that will be changing soon.
“It’s become clear that the market has definitely matured for Android,” said Miner at the MobileBeat technology conference in San Francisco on Tuesday. “Towards the end of last year I was recommending to companies that they focus on iOS mobile system — that has clearly flipped,” Miner said.
As a whole, the smartphone industry is growing at a rapid pace. 55 percent of U.S. mobile devices purchased over the last three months were smartphones, according to a Nielsen report published in late June. Android currently holds the title for the most used platform across U.S. smartphones with a marketshare of 38 percent according to ComScore. That’s a 15 percent bump up from February results. Apple edged out Research in Motion for second place, with shares of 26.6 percent and 24.7 percent, respectively.
But if Android wants to stay ahead of Apple and the rest of the pack, it needs to keep its app ecosystem attractive to both customers and developers alike. Beefing up the platform’s app catalog helps, but if customers can’t find the apps they want inside the huge pile, boasting big app numbers will be an exercise in futility.
The new landing page will roll out gradually to users running Android version 2.2 (Froyo) or higher over the next few weeks. If you aren’t keen on waiting, check out the video below for a peek at the Market’s new look.
Well, looky here. AT&T has very quietly revealed it’s going to sell the Sony Ericsson Xperia Play. No press release, no splashy press conference backed by a cheesy disco soundtrack. The thing just showed up at the carrier’s holiday preview event here in New York City. We’re told it runs Gingerbread, which would make it AT&T’s second Android 2.3 handset behind the newly launched HTC Status. Alas, AT&T won’t say just yet when the Play will be available or how much it will cost on contract, but we do know a couple things for sure. One, it’ll run on the carrier’s 21MBps-capable HSPA+ network. Two, it’ll be available in a “Stealth Blue” color option, in addition to the stock black model we’ve handled before. Other than that, the specs — namely, the 1GHz Qualcomm MSM8255 Snapdragon chip and 4-inch (854 x 480 display) — remain the same. Hands-on shots with the sparkling navy number below.
AT&T launches Sony Ericsson Xperia Play with Gingerbread, blue color option originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 12 Jul 2011 16:54:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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