Biking through Google street view

[Aki] wanted to do some stationary cycling to get in shape. Unfortunately, his stationary cycle is located in his garage which doesn’t supply much inspiration or amusement. His solution was to build a VR rig so that he could ride around inside google street view. He has rigged a simple sensor to his wheel to determine his speed and he’s using a vuzix VR 920 as a display and orientation sensor. While he notes that it isn’t perfect, or even reliable, we think it is pretty cool. He can go sight-seeing, while getting in shape from his own garage. We have to wonder if he gets a headache after a while though.

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Smart Devices’ SmartQ5a MID now shipping with Android

It was recently made known that E World has put up a SmartQ5a MID, pictured above), for sale pre-installed with Android 1.5.

For $199.99, other than Android 1.5 you will get a 667MHz Samsung ARM processor, 128MB of RAM, a 4.3-inch touchscreen, WiFi and a microSD slot.

Interested? Head here to check it out.

via engadget

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Motorola Tao aka Sholes Caught on Camera

For the moment CLIQ is the hot Android phone coming from Motorola via T-Mobile. But fear not Moto fans, CLIQ has a worthy follower or so we suspect. The Tao or Sholes or however they decide to call it at launch, has been spotted in the wild running Android. What other OS would it run? As you can see the phone was running Google Maps at the time the picture was taken and you can also see it’s going to offer us a pretty impressive 1390mAh battery. We have no more details at this point in time but in Verizon we trust to launch the phone already!

via phonearena

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AT&T Asks the FCC to Investigate Google Voice

Talk about an unforeseen turn of events! It looks like none other than AT&T is asking the FCC to investigate Google Voice. AT&T has been rumored to be the muscle behind Apple’s decision to keep Google Voice out of the App Store and now the carrier is fighting back. AT&T claims that Google Voice is responsible for blocking calls which is contrary to federal call-blocking regulations. All calls have to be permitted, no matter who you’d want to call. Google Voice is responsible for blocking calls to “adult-chat lines and conference call services, which charge expensive access fees.” We can deal with blocked conference calls but no adult-chat connections? FCC certainly has to look into that. After all anyone should be able to call adult-chat lines whenever they please!

I wonder how many adult-chat lines / conference call services AT&T has tried before finding this anomaly in Google’s Google Voice service. So let’s see what the FCC will have to say about all this. After all the same commission punished AT&T when they were doing some call blocking of their own a couple of years ago so Google might have some explaining to do. Will be back with more details about the AT&T-Google-Apple “love” triangle in the following weeks as this soap opera is getting more and more interesting to follow.

via WSJ

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Build your own browser extensions for Google Chrome

[Ryan] posted a writeup on developing extensions for Google Chrome. The extension system utilizes HTML with a JavaScript API which is still sparsely documented. After taking us through his twitter bar extension project, he concludes that the Chrome extensions are not nearly as versatile as what we’re used to seeing with Firefox. That being said, this is a move in the right direction for the young browser.

[related: Google Chrome roundup]

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Trim the fat from Gmail

Google’s Gmail is a highly viable option for email. With numerous features and options like widgets, a task list, labels, and chat, Gmail has a slight tendency to get overwhelming and might force us to loose focus on what it is really all about: email.

What can make Gmail better? For starters, how about no ads; they are cluttering and distracting. What about getting rid of the widgets and unnecessary features like labels and chat that we think are supposed to make us more productive but really only make us lose our focus to send, read and reply to email? Nobody knows Zen better than [Leo] at Zen Habits. We weren’t surprised that he and his friends (with Firefox and Greasemonkey) have found a way to trim all the unnecessary elements from Gmail and make it into an email powerhouse that focuses on a basic productive email client. The minimalist inbox for Gmail consists of Greasemonkey scripts for:

• Removing gadgets
• Hiding labels, chat and footer
• Removing ads
• Removing stars
• Getting rid of the Gmail logo and searchbar
• Removing menu navigation bar
• Cleaning up and removing unnecessary buttons

To get started focusing on email, and only email, head on over to ZenHabits for a list of associated scripts and what exactly they can do to help you on your road to the minimalist Gmail.

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Android Developer Challenge 2 open for submissions

Google has opened up a new Android Developer Challenge for submissions.motorolaAbout $2,000,000 in prize money is available, with $250,000 going to the best overall app. Submissions are due by August 31, leaving about a week to get apps in for judging. Time is short, but the prizes are big. Hopefully we’ll see some exciting things come from the contestants now that the community has grown since the previous ADC in 2008.

[via Phandroid]

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Motorola DEXT on Orange UK early next month?

Yesterday we let you know that the Motorola CLIQ would be coming to the UK sometime in 2010 as the Motorola DEXT. However, today we have some contrasting news as recent reports suggest that the Motorola DEXT will in fact be hitting Orange UK sometime early next month.

Furthermore, pre-orders are supposedly going to start sometime around September 22nd so if you’re on Orange UK and want to get yourself an android handset you should probably wait off until then.

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Firefox 4.0 mockup screenshots showcased

Mozilla is hard at work on Firefox 4.0 and have today taken the time to show us a mockup screen shot of the browser’s new interface.

Does the interface look familiar? It should as it bares an uncanny resemblance to that of Google’s Chrome. I’m not complaining as I’ve become quite the fan of Chrome’s interface but Mozilla seems a bit unsure.

Below is a list of positives and negatives of the new UI compiled by Mozilla:

Positives:
- Save Vertical Space
- Efficiency/Remove Visual Complexity – Right now the tabs have to be connected to something. So we are adding an extra visual element for them to connect to.
- Shorter Mouse Distance to Page Controls.
Negatives:
- Breaks Consistency/Familiarity – Moving things confuses existing users.
- Title is MIA – With the space removed from the titlebar you only get the truncated version in the tab.
- Longer Mouse Distance to Tabs – Takes longer to mouse to a tab.
- Lost Space – Sandwiched in between the application icon and the window widgets you lose some space.

So, readers, what are you opinions on Firefox’s new look? Good? Bad? Leave it in the comments.

via Mashable

Tags: 4.0, browser, Chrome, Firefox, Google, Google, internet, Mobile Software, mockup, Mozilla, software

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Sony Ericsson Kiki Phone: Where’s the Keypad?

We can definitely see Sony Ericsson pairing its interesting Xperia design with an Android OS. In fact that’s a more than good idea. An Android Xperia could be the killer phone we’re expecting from Sony Ericsson.

But the Sony Kiki concept isn’t bad either. For one thing, this phone is really green so should we expect it to be really eco-friendly too? It’s so green it doesn’t even have any keypad. So how would one be able to interact with it? Simply press your finger against that glass right? That seems pretty logical but we have no official news from Sony Ericsson regarding this phone.

And what about the screen of the Kiki? Is it projected on the glass surface? It would certainly seem so:

The display seems to be made of glass, and the screen image appears to be projected onto this glass surface. It makes it possible to create a sort of depth in the screen image, and it looks rather exciting. We’re very much looking forward to seeing more of this.

Again, there’s no official Sony Ericsson position on the Kiki just yet but our interest has certainly been piqued.

via mobil

Tags: Android, concept, Google, Kiki, Mobile News, Sony Ericsson, Sony Ericsson, xperia

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Flash 10 Beta for Smartphones to be Available in October

You have been probably waiting for Adobe to finish its Flash 10 for smartphones already but the company doesn’t have a final version just yet. Good news though, that Flash 10 is going to be available by the end of the year, at least in beta. According to its latest earnings presentation Flash 10 beta for smartphone will be available sometime in October. The software will be available for smartphones made by Nokia and Palm or running Google and Microsoft OS.

via blogcdn

Tags: adobe, Beta, Flash 10, Google, Google, Microsof, microsoft, Mobile News, Mobile Software, Nokia, Nokia, Palm, Palm

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Nokia: No truth to Android rumor

Yesterday we got word that Nokia was gearing up to launch an Android powered handset, but were the rumors true? According to Nokia, nope, not at all.

When notified of the rumors, a Nokia spokesperson said that there is “Absolutely no truth to this whatsoever,” and continued with “Everyone knows that Symbian is our preferred platform for advanced mobile devices.” You can’t really blame Nokia, considering how much money and effort they invested into the Symbian platform.

However, will their strong stance on the subject change? What about if/when the industry moves towards open source software?

Read (Reuters)

Tags: Android, Cell Phones, denial, Google, Mobile News, Mobile Software, Nokia, Nokia, rumor, symbian

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Distributed computing in JavaScript

posted by Eliot Phillips
filed under: google hacks, news

We’ve heard about the idea of using browsers as distributed computing nodes for a couple years now. It’s only recently, with the race towards faster JavaScript engines in browsers like Chrome that this idea seems useful. [Antimatter15] did a proof of concept JavaScript implementation for reversing hashes. Plura Processing uses a Java applet to do distributed processing. Today, [Ilya Grigorik] posted an example using MapReduce in JavaScript. Google’s MapReduce is designed to support large dataset processing across computing clusters. It’s well suited for situations where computing nodes could go offline randomly (i.e. a browser navigates away from your site). He included a JavaScript snippet and a job server in Ruby. It will be interesting to see if someone comes up with a good use for this; you still need to convince people to keep your page open in the browser though. We’re just saying: try to act surprised when you realize Hack a Day is inexplicably making your processor spike…

[via Slashdot]

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Googles servers revealed

posted by Caleb Kraft
filed under: google hacks, news

We’ve often wondered what kind of hardware the giant of the internet, Google, used to handle it’s data. They’ve recently revealed what their main workhorses are. It’s a custom motherboard made by Gigabyte with two processors, and eight RAM slots. The main point of interest on these is the fact that each server and piece of network equipment has it’s own battery backup. This may add a little money in the initial cost of the unit, but apparently it is a much more efficient way of handling power. Be sure to click over to the site and check out the shipping container setup that they use. Each container has 1,160 servers. They aren’t the only ones using this method. Microsoft has adopted it for their newer facilities and Sun has done some extensive testing on how these portable facilities handle earthquakes. You can see the quake test after the break.

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