Friday, February 22, 2013

Google Going High End

Image representing Google as depicted in Crunc...
Image via CrunchBase
That used to be Apple's territory. Past tense.



The Chromebook Pixel, for what’s next

1500 dollars for a laptop.

I think this is a hint at at the X phone. There is going to be a wow factor to it. It is going to bend, for one.

Why Google Made Its Own High-End Laptop, the Chromebook Pixel
the Chromebook Pixel, a laptop that it designed and built itself ..... Unlike prior Chromebooks, whose main draw was their value, this one is built to compete with the top end of the market...... The three biggest appeals of the Pixel will likely be its touchscreen and high-density display, its elegant design, and the fact that it’s a Web-based device. .... The focus on detail and design is unheard of for a Google product. Where the company had tiptoed into hardware before, it’s striding in wholeheartedly now. .... The smooth device’s hinge gives “the feeling of a luxury car door opening and closing” .... The touchpad is made of glass, and has been tuned with a laser to have a maximally grippy surface. There are three microphones, with an additional one set below the keyboard so typing noises can be canceled out. ..... “tuning the force function of the mechanical keys to be more responsive.” ...... the Pixel is similar to Google’s Nexus device line ..... Google isn’t even naming the Taiwan-based OEM it is working with for the Pixel. ..... this is very much a first-generation device. Some of the Pixel’s hardware capabilities — like the third microphone, and gestures on the touchscreen — aren’t even supported by Google’s own services yet. .... The Pixel brings Google back to the perpetual question of why Google is building two operating systems, Chrome and Android, that are converging on each other. ..... once you build a touchscreen laptop, the lines blur
This is Google beating everyone on hardware. That also used to be Apple territory. Past tense.

Great design, used to be Apple territory.

But this still is not the hardware for NUI, the fast impending Natural User Interface, the next big paradigm shift after touch.
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Wednesday, February 20, 2013

My Keys










Tuesday, February 19, 2013

Dropbox Mobility

Image representing Dropbox as depicted in Crun...
Image via CrunchBase
Google's lament with Facebook was it stands behind a wall, we can't search. Then Steve Jobs brought along iPhone apps that were even further behind the wall. An app was not like a website. You couldn't search. And the data the app collected mostly stayed not among apps, but inside that app itself.

Looks like Dropbox wants to shake that thing. Dropbox is a cloud inside the cloud.



Dropbox Offers a Way to Free Data from Mobile Apps
setting out to build “a fabric that ties together all devices, services, and apps … the Internet’s file system” .... the Sync API, allows mobile apps to save data to a user’s Dropbox account so that the app can be synched across multiple devices .... The Sync API could also erode some of the restrictions imposed by the competing mobile “ecosystems” of Apple and Google by making it easier to switch between them without leaving any data behind. For example, someone who had been using an image editing app for Apple’s iPad could install the same app on an Android tablet and find the edited photos on the new device. ..... “The Sync API allows iOS and Android developers to focus on the core aspects of their app and leave the complexities of working across platforms to us” ..... Dropbox’s leaders are carefully planning how to compete with Apple. ..... Apple and Dropbox are the two cloud services most used by U.S. consumers, with 27 percent and 17 percent
Will Dropbox Add a Music Player to its File Store?
Dropbox: Founder Drew Houston Simplifies the Cloud
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