US carrier T-Mobile introduced the widely anticipated G1 phone, made by HTC, which has a touch-sensitive screen, a computer-like keyboard, Wi-Fi connections and uses Google's new Android operating system. Available in three colours - black, white and brown - it includes familiar Google services, such as Google Maps, Gmail and YouTube.
Like the iPhone and other "smartphones" the device is meant to broaden the appeal of web use on the go.
"If we see more mobile web usage we'll be happy," Google co-founder Sergey Brin said after arriving at the launch on roller-blades.
His company, a powerhouse in online advertising, would benefit if Android led more mobile users to spend time on the web, no matter which phone they are using.
Google is well ahead of rivals Yahoo and Microsoft in web search on computers, but it wants to use Android to ensure this dominance carries over to the phone when mobile web-surfing becomes more popular.
But while no clear mobile web winner has emerged so far, Google faces stiff competition from longer established phone players such as Nokia, Research In Motion's BlackBerry and Microsoft, as well as Apple.
Analysts saw the device as a "good first step" rather than an iPhone killer, but some expect as many as 400,000 to be sold in the US by the end of the year.
A T-Mobile executive said the estimate was "not incredible."
When it becomes available to US consumers on October 22, the G1 will sell for about $US179 ($214) - slightly cheaper than the entry-level price of $US199 ($230) for Apple's iPhone - with a two-year contract.
The G1 will be launched by T-Mobile's UK unit in November and other European countries such as Germany, Netherlands and the Czech Republic in the first quarter of 2009.
"The G1 doesn't threaten Apple now, but Android has raised the bar for competing mobile platforms. The bigger concern here is for Microsoft and Nokia if Google can win over the hearts and minds of operators and developers," said Geoff Blaber, an analyst with British firm CCS Insight.
It is not clear when Australia will see a phone running Google's Android system. 12 hours before the international unveiling of the Google phone, handset manufacturer HTC held a launch in Sydney for the Touch Pro, a product unrelated to Android.
"We have no explanation as to why Australia is not introducing the Google phone," an external HTC PR spokesperson told SmartHouse Magazine.
When asked about the Australian release, a Google spokesperson told NEWS.com.au the T-Mobile phone was just the beginning.
"Our hope is that that Android platform will spur the development of thousands of different kinds of devices. The T-Mobile G1 is just the first step.
"It's still too soon to tell what forms Android-powered devices will take, but we're excited about the possibilities this kind of open platform will bring, and the benefits that users will ultimately enjoy."
Both Google and Apple are wooing developers to create applications for their devices, but unlike Apple, which keeps a tight grip on the iPhone's hardware and operating software, Google's Android is open to be changed by outside developers.
Asked if the user interface of future Google phones would look anything like the first one, Andy Rubin, who developed Android for Google, said: "Its completely replaceable."
For example, T-Mobile US product development vice president Leslie Grandy saw the carrier selling a range of Google-powered phones in future, including more basic ones without a touch-screen or full keyboards.
The new phone features Android Market, where customers can find and download free applications to expand and personalise their phones.
Mr Grandy said the marketplace would eventually include applications that are sold for a fee.
"Because the platform is open, we think Android is somewhat future proof," Mr Rubin , Google director of mobile platforms, told the audience at the launch.
A similar strategy helped increase the buzz around Apple's second-generation iPhone, which can support more than 3000 applications available online.
Amazon.com's digital music store will be loaded on the G1, allowing users to search, download, buy and play more than six million songs, pitting it against iPhone's music player.
Android also competes with Microsoft's Windows Mobile operating system, which has been solidly gaining ground.
HTC chief executive Peter Chou said his company, which has concentrated on Windows phones so far, is already planning more Android and Windows devices.
Mr Chou said he expected to have sold more than 400,000 G1 by the end of the year.
Android's biggest competitor is Symbian software, which represents 60 per cent of the smartphone market and which Nokia plans to buy out and open to other developers.
Nokia, which has about 40 per cent of the mobile phone market, has also branched into mobile web services such as mapping that compete directly with Google.
Speaking at a conference in Chicago this week, Nokia chief executive Olli-Pekka Kallasvuo said he was not worried by new competition.
"The entry of Apple and Google - in fact today in a very concrete way - in mobile communications is the best possible illustration of the fact that there's a lot of possibility here," he said.
IBM Lotus Symphony is free Office productivity suite based on OpenOffice.org and supports the ODF file formats. It includes a Word Processor, Spreadsheet and a Presentation program much like Google Docs or a starter edition of Microsoft Office - see screenshots.
Symphony software is available as a free download for Linux, Windows and Mac OS X systems but if you are using a slow internet connection, you can ask IBM to send you the Lotus Symphony installer CD for free.
Just fill in this request form and an IBM Lotus Symphony CD will delivered to your place free of cost. Valid in India only.
When online payment services like PayPal were first launched over a decade ago, the sudden and disturbing ease with which regular people could electronically transfer money between each other online was nothing less than miraculous. Not only was it faster and easier than withdrawing cash from an ATM or even doing a wire transfer, an average Joe could accept credit card payments from other users without having to invest in any sort of equipment or processing system. That phenomenon is happening all over again in the form of cash transfers via text message. If you live in a country where there's a participating carrier and banking institution that supports it, all you have to do is send an SMS to your friend in order for money to virtually change hands.
One such carrier is Vodafone, which plans to announce a partnership with Western Union today that will allow users to make international money transfers just by using their cell phones. The companies, according to the Wall Street Journal, will initially launch a pilot program in parts of the UK that will allow them to send money to friends and family in Kenya. Assuming the service is as popular as many expect it to be, Vodafone plans to expand the service to other countries as an add-on service.
This will be the first time a company has gotten into the international money transfer business using text messages, but domestic money transfers via SMS have been around for a while. Users in the Philippines and India have been transferring money domestically via cell phones for some time, and Vodafone runs a domestic money transfer service in Kenya, Tanzania, and Afghanistan called M-Pesa that now has some 4 million users.
The Chicago Tribune outlines the story of a Kenyan mother of two who normally has to travel an hour by bus to get to a money-wiring office to receive cash from her husband, but can now get the money easily by text message. "It saves time, it saves money and it is safer," she told the newspaper. Other Kenyans now depend upon M-Pesa to get paid by their employers, who no longer need to take the dangerous risk of carrying around bags of cash on payday (banks are few and far between in many rural areas).
But you don't have to live on the other side of the world in order to being playing around with mobile money transfers. Obopay, a US-based company, offers a PayPal-like service that allows users to send and receive money. However, Obopay also allows users to text message each other with virtual cash, something that PayPal doesn't offer quite yet (Update: it appears as if PayPal does offer SMS payments after all). The cool part about Obopay is that you don't need to sign up for an account in order to retrieve cash that someone has sent you—just enter your personal information and bank details for wherever you want the money transferred, and it will show up there.
Here at Gear Live, we’ve been big fans of Orb for quite a while. Back in the original iPhone days, they made an app that was only available on jailbroken phones that we really liked - we just knew it needed to run at 3G speeds to be useful when on the go. The time has finally come, though, as OrbLive has hit the App Store. To back up for a moment, Orb allows you to access files and media on your home computer while on the go. This means that any music on your home computer can now be played on your iPhone from wherever you are. Videos too. Oh, and if you have a TV tuner in your computer, Orb will even allow you to tap into that and watch live television on the go as well. Isn’t that off the hook?
The one caveat for the time being is that the Orb PC software is only available for Windows - but the Orb folks are promising that versions for Mac and Linux are coming soon. We definitely recommend this one - grab the full version of OrbLive for $9.99, or if you are on the fence, there is also a demo version, OrbLive Free.
Android Hacker Brad Fitzpatrick created an Android Activity that scans for his home's WiFi, presumably by looking for its unique MAC address. When his G1 detects that the house is in-range as he drives home on his motorcycle, it sends out what he calls a magic HTTP request to the garage door's web server. Yes, you read that right. His garage door (as well as presumably most of his house) has been fully automated. The garage door server requires a timestamped HMAC-signed URL in order to authenticate the request and open itself. So even if Brad's mom decides to buy a G1, she's not getting in to re-arrange his furniture without getting past his secure system. Unless, I suppose, there's a power outage, a large handy prybar and local law enforcement willing to look the other way.
Brad has posted his Android Garage Opener as an open source github project. You will need to provide your own garage with its own web server.
So what's up next for Brad? According to this Live Journal post, he may next use in-house triangulation to detect which room he's in. Then he could turn his G1 into a "magic wand of light" to automatically turn on the lights for whichever room he enters.
