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Google revealed the specs of Glass

In Google / By Pui Leng / 17 April 2013
Google Glass is officially official as Google has revealed the device’s technical specs.

The device features adjustable nosepads in two sizes and durable frame to fit any face. It boasts a 640 x 360 display whose resolution is “equivalent of a 25-inch high definition screen from eight feet away”. It also includes a 5-megapixel camera that can shoot video at 720p and audio that is transmitted through a bone conduction transducer.

For connectivity, the Google Glass features Wifi 802.11b/g and bluetooth. It comes with 12GB of usable memory, and can sync with Google cloud storage which contributes to 16GB Flash in total. According to Google, the battery its sufficient to one full day of typical use, however some features like Hangouts and video recording are more power hungry. Glass is chargeable through a microUSB cable and charger. However, though “there are thousands of Micro USB chargers out there, Glass is designed and tested with the included charger in mind,” Google specified.
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The significant news events of 2012

In Uncategorized / By Pui Leng / 31 December 2012
In less than 10 hours before year 2012 ends, let’s rewind some significant news events of the year.

The launch of Windows 8

Apple and Samsung Lawsuit
The Great Patent War between Apple and Samsung entered its second year in 2012. In September, Apple won the lawsuit and Samsung was fined an enormous $1.05 billion. However, Samsung won back a minor victory when the court denied Apple’s request for a permanent injunction forbidding the sale of several Samsung devices. The Apple-Samsung lawsuits are ongoing in countries all across the globe.

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Google launched new and improved Blogger mobile apps

In Google / By Pui Leng / 17 November 2012
Inspiration for a new blog post can happen at anywhere and anytime. Mobile devices bring us the convenience to stay connected and also enables us to turn the inspiration into words wherever we are.

With that in mind, Google has launched updated versions of its Blogger mobile apps for Android and iOS, bringing the version number on both platforms to 2.0.The updated apps include a visual facelift and other features which make it easier for you to create and share — wherever your imagination runs wild. Some of the more notable improvements include:
- Landscape support for composing posts
- Sharing to Google+
- Ability to view a scheduled post time
- International support in 30+ languages
- iPad support
You can get the Android app over at Google Play, while the iOS app is available at Apple’s App Store.

Reference:
http://mashable.com/2012/11/16/mobile-blogger-apps-2-0/
What’s new in Android 4.2 Jelly Bean?

In Google / By Pui Leng / 31 October 2012
While many of us are still waiting for the Android 4.1 Jelly Bean update, Google has announced the Android 4.2 Jelly Bean. It is an incremental Android update that will offer users a variety of new features. Let’s check them out!

Photo Sphere camera feature

Android 4.2 will offer users a new camera feature, dubbed Photo Sphere, which will let them create interesting panoramic photos that will have both a horizontal and a vertical component. After all, Google had this technology all along, used so far in its Street View Google Maps feature.

Swype-like Gesture Typing keyboard

Gesture Typing is one of the new keyboard-related Android 4.2 features: “just glide your finger over the letters you want to type, and lift after each word. You don’t have to worry about spaces because they’re added automatically for you.”

In other words, Android 4.2 will have a Swype-like default keyboard for you to “power through your messages like never before” complete with text predicting features and more accurate Android dictionaries. Naturally, the text-to-speech capabilities have also been improved.
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Google announced Nexus 7 and Nexus 10 tablets

In Brands, Google, Samsung / By Pui Leng / 30 October 2012
Google has announced three great new Nexus devices in small, medium and large sizes which have enabled people with more than one device to switch between them without any hassles. Users just sign in with their Google Account and everything is there ready to go. The Nexus 4 smartphone, Nexus 7 and Nexus 10 tablets run Android 4.2, a new flavor of Jelly Bean—which includes the latest version of Google Now and other great new features.

Nexus 7: Thin, light and now even more portable

Google also announced two new Nexus 7 tablet versions, both featuring 32GB of storage. Obviously, one comes with Wi-Fi support, while the other also includes 3G connectivity. Google has added HSPA+ mobile data in order to make this highly portable tablet even more mobile.

The 32GB Nexus 7 Wi-Fi version will retail for $249 and it’s already available in the U.S., Canada, Japan, Australia U.K., France, Germany and Spain. In addition to Google, other retailers will stock the tablet, including Walmart, Staples, Office Depot, Office Max and Gamestop.

The 3G version will go on sale starting with November 13 in 7 countries including the U.S., Canada, Australia, U.K., France, Germany and Spain and will cost $299. That’s the unlocked price of the device.

The 16GB model will retail for $199 and it’s already available in the same markets as the 32GB Nexus 7 Wi-Fi model. The 8GB model has been discontinued.
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Google and LG announced Nexus 4 smartphone

In Brands, Google, LG / By Pui Leng / 30 October 2012
Hurricane Sandy has caused Google to cancel its Android 4.2 media event that was supposed to take place in New York City yesterday, thus it was forced to unveil its new products via press releases. The newly announced products include the Nexus 4, Nexus 7 and Nexus 10.

Google Nexus 4 by LG

Nexus 4 is the newest smartphone in the Nexus line-up designed collaboratively by LG and Google. It was announced for availability starting next month in select markets.

“LG is proud and excited to play this role in helping build the latest Nexus smart-phone,” said Dr. Jong-seok Park, President and CEO of LG Electronics Mobile Com-munications Company. “Users will be delighted by the perfectly balanced combination of form and function with the latest generation of Android.”

“This is the first time we collaborated with LG to build a Nexus device,” said Andy Rubin, Senior Vice President of Mobile and Digital Content at Google. “They brought an extraordinary amount of talent to the project, and the result is a feature-packed device that feels great in your hand, and blazingly fast under the hood.”

This thing’s been leaked six ways to Sunday, and now LG and Google have finally made the Nexus 4 official. It is as we’ve seen this whole time — 4.7-inch IPS display, Qualcomm Snapdragon S4 Pro at 1.5 GHz, and Android 4.2 Jelly Bean. It’ll be available starting Nov. 13 in the U.S., UK, Canada, Germany, France, Spain and Australia.
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Google Nexus 10 tablet leaked

In Brands, Google, Samsung / By Pui Leng / 29 October 2012
The latest leaks suggest that Google will be partnering with Samsung in manufacturing a 10in Android tablet – the Google Nexus 10. The device is said to feature the latest version of Google’s Android operating system— Android 4.2 Jelly Bean.

Rumors also suggest a brushed aluminium backplate and rubberised edges, making this tablet thin and light. It is expected to come with following specs:
- 10.1-inch display of 2560 x 1600 resolution (amounts to 299 pixels per inch which outdoes Apple’s iPad’s Retina Display)
- Dual-core Samsung Exynos 5250 processor clocked at 1.7 GHz
- ARM Mali-T604 graphics processor
- 2GB of RAM
- 16GB of internal storage
- NFC, Wi-Fi, GPS, Bluetooth 4.0
- 5-megapixel rear camera
We have expected Google to reveal the tablet along with the Nexus 4 phone by LG during the Google event, however the October 29 event had been postponed to a latter unannounced date due to Hurricane Sandy. Let’s hope that Google doesn’t take too long to announce the event date.

Reference:
http://www.hardwarezone.com.my/tech-news-google-nexus-10-tablet-and-new-lockscreen-glimpsed-video-demo

The battle of mini tablets

In Apple, Brands, Google, Kindle Fire, Samsung / By Pui Leng / 27 October 2012

The launch of iPad has added a competitive device into the 7-inch mini tablet wars. Is it a hard decision to choose between these tablets?

Cnet Asia has put together the specs of the iPad mini compared with few popular 7-inch tablets currently in the market, including Google Nexus 7, Samsung Galaxy 7.7 and Amazon Kindle Fire HD. Galaxy Tab 7.7 was chosen instead of the latest Galaxy Tab 2 7.0 for this comparison because the former is more comparable with the iPad mini in terms of screen size and price.

Specs	iPad mini Wi-Fi	Nexus 7	Galaxy Tab 7.7	Kindle Fire HD
Processor	Apple A5 (dual-core)	Nvidia Tegra 3 (quad-core)	Samsung Exynos 4210 (dual-core)	TI OMAP 4470 (dual-core)
Operating system	iOS 6	Android 4.1 Jelly Bean	Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich (with update)	Custom Android
Storage	16/32/64GB onboard storage, non-expandable	8/16GB onboard storage, non-expandable	16GB onboard storage, expandable via a microSD slot	16/32GB onboard storage, non-expandable
RAM	TBC	1GB	1GB	1GB
Camera	5-megapixel iSight camera, 1.2-megapixel FaceTime camera	1.2-megapixel front-facing camera	3.2-megapixel rear camera, 2-megapixel front-facing camera	720p front-facing camera
Screen	7.9-inch (1,024 x 768 pixels) IPS LCD	7-inch (1,280 x 800 pixels) IPS LCD	7.7-inch (1,280 x 800 pixels) Super AMOLED Plus	7-inch (1,280 x 800 pixels) IPS LCD
GPS	No	Yes	Yes	No
NFC	No	Yes	No	No
Dimensions	200 x 134.7 x 7.2mm	198.5 x 120 x 10.5mm	196.7 x 133 x 7.9mm	193 x 137.2 x 10.2mm
Weight	308g	340g	340g	567g
Price	US$329 (16GB), US$429 (32GB), US$529 (64GB)	US$199 (8GB), US$249 (32GB)	S$598 (US$490)	US$199 (16GB), US$249 (32GB)

Nexus 7 and Kindle Fire have higher-resolution HD screens which contribute to a more pleasing appearance of text, images and videos. Those on a budget will appreciate the lower starting prices of those two tablets.

Reference:
http://asia.cnet.com/ipad-mini-vs-nexus-7-galaxy-tab-7-7-and-kindle-fire-hd-62219243.htm

Google announced the Samsung Chromebook

In Brands, Samsung / By Pui Leng / 20 October 2012
Google launched the Chromebook built by Samsung. The ARM-based Chromebook has an 11.6in, 1,366 x 768 displays, weighs in at 1.1kg and measures 0.8in thin. Google promised over 6.5 hours of battery life and 100GB of Google Drive cloud storage for two years.

The Samsung Chromebook runs an ARM Cortex A15 processor known as the Samsung Exynos 5 Dual Processor. It includes a VGA camera and ports for USB 2.0 and 3.0, as well as HDMI. There’s built-in dual band Wi-Fi 802.11 a/b/g/n and Bluetooth 3.0 compatibility.

Sundar Pichai, the senior vice president for Chrome & Apps at Google said that in order to have one, two or more computers around the house, they need to be easy to use and much more affordable. So together with Samsung, they designed a new laptop—the new Samsung Chromebook for $249 [£229] – the computer for everyone.

The Chromebook is available for preorder online in the US and UK, However there’s no word on when sales will expand to other countries. Google has informed that it currently has no plans to sell the Chromebook in Asia.

Read more at:
http://www.channelstv.com/home/2012/10/19/samsunggoogle-launch-chromebook/
Google surpassed Microsoft to become the world’s second-largest technology company

In Google, Search Engine / By Pui Leng / 3 October 2012
Google Inc. has surpassed Microsoft Corp. to become the world’s second-largest technology company as computing over the Internet reduces demand for software installed on desktop machines.

Google rose 1 percent to $761.78 at the close in New York, gaining a market capitalization of about $249.9 billion. Microsoft, the world’s biggest software maker, fell less than 1 percent to $29.49, for a valuation of $247.2 billion.

The victory over Microsofts follows Google’s rise from a search-engine invented by two Stanford University students into an advertising powerhouse that makes the world’s most popular mobile operating system and tool for searching information on the Web. It also reflects that the Internet is getting as a more important delivery channel for more of the software and computing tasks that were once left to the Microsoft-dominated PC industry.

“The PC hardware business is obviously struggling,” said Martin Pyykkonen, an analyst at Wedge Partners. “The transition here is pretty straightforward in terms of where things have moved to and certainly that’s cloud, that’s Web.”

Apple remains still as the world’s most valuable company at $632.7 billion, tops Google among tech companies. Apple passed Microsoft in 2010 on rising sales of iPhones and iPads – devices that helped usher in a new era of computing that’s less reliant on PCs.

Reference:
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-10-01/google-passes-microsoft-s-market-value-as-pc-loses-to-web.html
Google Maps dives underwater for stunning panoramic ocean views

In Google, Search Engine / By Pui Leng / 28 September 2012
In a project that was done in conjunction with The Catlin Seaview Survey, Google Maps has added its first underwater panoramic images to Google Maps. The service now offers 360-degree views of what are generally considered to be six of the world’s most beautiful underwater vistas. It gives users a glimpse of six Pacific coral reefs; Heron Island and Lady Elliot Island off Queensland, Wilson Island in the Great Barrier Reef, the Philippines’ Apo Island, and Hanauma Bay in Oahu and Molokini Crater in Maui, both in Hawaii.

The project is part of a major scientific study of the world’s reefs, and the images were taken with a specially designed underwater camera, the Catlin Seaview VII camera, a device that’s basically the underwater counterpart of Google Street View cameras. The camera takes rapid-fire 360-degree images every 3 seconds while traveling at a speed of about 2.5 miles per hour.

According to the Google official blog, their next step after the very first underwater panoramic images is to provide people with the most comprehensive, accurate and usable map of the world.With these vibrant and stunning photos you don’t have to be a scuba diver—or even know how to swim—to explore and experience six of the ocean’s most incredible living coral reefs. Now, anyone can become the next virtual Jacques Cousteau and dive with sea turtles, fish and manta rays in Australia, the Philippines and Hawaii.

Read more at:
http://www.pcadvisor.co.uk/news/internet/3400767/google-maps-dives-underwater-for-panoramic-ocean-views/
http://googleblog.blogspot.jp/2012/09/dive-into-great-barrier-reef-with-first_25.html
Google to Shut Down China Music Service on October 19

In IT News / By Pui Leng / 22 September 2012
Google has announced to shutter their music download service in China on October 19, 2012, three years after they introduced it.

“We decided to turn off the music search service in China, turning their focus towards the more influential,” writes Google’s China general manager of engineering research Dr. Yang Wenluo in a translated blog post.

“In March 2009, we released the Google music search cooperation with Whale Music (Top100.cn), to provide Chinese users with free and legal high quality music. However, the influence of this product is not as high as we expect, so we decided to resources to other products. Users can login and download their saved playlists before October 19, 2012.”

All staff members will go on to work with other teams in the Google-sphere.

There may have been some competition responsible for Google’s closing the service. The company seems to fall farther and farther behind the home-grown search powerhouse Baidu. The fatal blow came last year when Baidu signed a licensing deal with One-Stop-China – a joint venture of Universal, Warner and Sony BMG. Wall Street Journal reported that Baidu is more like Google in more ways than one, controlling nearly 80% of the chinese search market.

Google would stop censoring their searches in China and moved their servers to Hong Kong, which operates by their own laws.

References:
http://www.redorbit.com/news/technology/1112698621/google-music-china-092112/
http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2410017,00.asp