Archive for year: 2010

Something people have been waiting for since the first T-Mobile, Android handset was launched is finally going to be available… Yes, Wi-Fi calling is hitting Android devices on T-Mobile. We have reached out to T-Mobile for clarification, as this doesn’t seem to be a normal UMA implementation (as rumored); it’s powered by a new application and we don’t think Wi-Fi to cellular handoffs will work. With that said, T-Mobile’s Wi-Fi calling capability is a great feature nonethenless, letting you make calls over a Wi-Fi signal when there is no cell service, and even making international calls abroad for free. The service will roll out on the new T-Mobile myTouch when the device is released later this year as well as support the Motorola DEFY. Full press release after the break!

I continue to be impressed on how Tmobile is innovating. I thought they were going to be out to lunch a while ago, but it’s good to see they are fighting for their market share.

Google is using its vast database of web shopping data to construct the ‘Google Price Index’ – a daily measure of inflation that could one day provide an alternative to official statistics.

The work by Google’s chief economist, Hal Varian, highlights how economic data can be gathered far more rapidly using online sources. The official Consumer Price Index data are collected by hand from shops, and only published monthly with a time lag of several weeks.

I’m still trying to recover from the shock of reading that the Consumer Price Index is collected BY [FREAKING] HAND from shops and “…with a time lag of several weeks”.

This is why Government needs to get out of everything that’s not purely a government function (e.g. law enforcement, judicial, military). This is stupefyingly shocking to me.

Microsoft may be late to the game with a consumer-savvy phone OS, but Windows Phone 7 is aiming to do right a lot of what Google is doing wrong. Based on what I saw during a visit to Microsoft’s headquarters two weeks ago, the Windows Phone 7 team may be on the right track to pose a serious threat to Google.

As much as I’ve become a Google fanboy, Microsoft is still, well, MICROSOFT. It’s good to see them making a very serious stab at the mobile market. They will not go down without a serious fight. If anyone can take back their market share, it’s Microsoft.

Munster foresees huge success for Apple in the tablet market, but he doesn’t think the iPad will keep the majority of tablet market share forever. The biggest threat? Android.

“Ultimately, we think that Apple won’t have the majority of the (tablet) market share. It’ll probably be with Android-based tablets.”

While Apple continues its walled-garden approach to building proprietary hardware, Google takes the open source route and creates a free operating system. What do you think the rest of the hardware world will embrace? Of course its Google.

Google’s genius is that their media-based model encourages FREE. Free content, free software, free services. This decimates their software competitors while swarming the hardware world with cheap, plentiful alternatives.

Bye bye Apple (well, Apple was really never a major player. They are a brilliant consumer electronics company). Bye Bye Microsoft (for consumer software).