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Tuesday 10 May 2011

Google Movies Comes To The (Very) Small Screen [ 10-05-2011 20:06 ]

Author: Serge Novikov Source: via BGR Translation by: Paul Smith

A lot of attention will no doubt be given to Google Music, but equally important is the announcement of Google Movies for Android devices. The premise is simple enough, users pop along to the Android Market and download a film, which will cost $1.99. The rental period is 30 days and users get a full 24 hours to watch the films. Android smartphones and tablets will have seperate apps for this service, but both will allow for streaming from the cloud as well as storing content on the devices themselves.

As for the content itself the description was that there would be 'thousands' of films available at launch. Presumably this will increase with time.

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Google Announces IceCream & New Update Policy [ 10-05-2011 20:01 ]

Author: Serge Novikov Source: via Engadget Translation by: Paul Smith

Google's I/O event is in full swing today and the Big G have just announced IceCream Sandwich the next iteration of Android that Google say will be the '... OS that runs everywhere." Essentially Honeycomb and Gingerbread, aimed at tablets and smartphones respectively, will find unity in one version of Android that will run on presumably any type of device. That's one in the eye for fragmentation then!

One very interesting, and potentially game changing, announcement to come out of I/O is that Google are laying down the law, so to speak, when it comes to future Android updates. Basically Google are seting timelines for how long a given device will wait to get updated once a new version of Android has been released. It doesn't end there though because Google will also be saying how long devices can expect support for new builds. This is a pretty big change and brings Google more in line with the likes of Apple and Microsoft rather than the 'hodge podge' arrangements that have been employed so far with each manufacturer/network setting their own agenda.

There are a number of partners agreeing to this new policy as you can see from the picture below (from Engadget):

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Google Music Beta Available [ 10-05-2011 19:49 ]

Author: Serge Novikov Source: Google Translation by: Paul Smith

Just a quick word to say that Google's new streaming music service is available for beta sign-ups, alas just in the United States at the moment though. The service, with the simple (and arguably elegant/arguably boring) title of 'Music' will allow users to upload their own tracks to share with the rest of the planet. No doubt Google either has some sort of agreement with record labels for this or they are right now hiring more lawyers for the impending disputes, but either way users will be able to store up oto 20,000 tracks in the cloud.

Now as many may expect from a Google product Music will be free, but there is a caveat here, it will be free 'at least a slong as it's in beta'. In other words there will almost certainly be money changing hands at some point. The Android app will be available for Froyo and upwards from today though.

If you live in the U.S. you can check out the beta here.

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100 Millionth Android Activation Comes Online [ 10-05-2011 19:43 ]

Author: Serge Novikov Source: Google Translation by: Paul Smith

Whilst Microsoft have been busy buying up Skype and Apple have been busy becoming the world's most valuable brand, what exactly has Google been doing? Oh not much really ... just activating their 100 millionth Android device! Yes folks Android has now clocked up 100 million activations and the pace of activations is increasing having shot up to 400,000 activations per day. Some other figures to go along with that are that the Market has 200,000 apps and those apps have been installed a cumulative 4.5 billion times. Oh and Google says that that figure is accelerating too!

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Microsoft Gobble Up Skype [ 10-05-2011 16:44 ]

Author: Irina Turina Source: http://pocketnow.com Translation by: Paul Smith

The major news of the day is undoutedly the Microsoft-Skype deal. Not to say that there aren't other things going on of course, just check the rest of today's posts, for example, but this is definitely a big deal, in both senses of the phrase. The deal is worth a cool $8.5 billion, more than three times the price eBay paid for Skype back in 2005.

Microsoft will of course be taking full advanatge of now controlling Skype with prime examples being Xbox support, indeed that's actually mentioned in the official announcement. There will also be Windows Phone support obviously, but for those using Skype on a platform outside of Microsoft's reach (yes they do exist) you apparently have nothing to fear as Microsoft have promised that they will "... invest in and support Skype client on non-Microsoft platforms."

Managing the new Microsoft department of Skype (as that is what the independent company now is) will be Skype's (former) CEO Tony Bates. He'll be reporting directly to Ballmer with the deal expected to be finalised towards the end of this year.

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