Jan 20, 2011: News Digest

This post is a summary of technology, gadgets, electronics news and items  that I find interesting from different sources. You never know, something from this list may interest you too... Check it out...

Topics:

1) Google announces Organizational Shuffle

2) Eric Schmidt outlines Google's priorities, while he is still CEO
3) Port your number to Google Voice, for $20
4) Apple makes it hard to see the inner working of its devices

5) Want to root your Android device, then don't buy Motorola

6) Gorilla Glass has competition now, here comes Dragontrail from Asahi

Google announces Organizational Shuffle

Source: Engadget, Google

Google announced its results for fourth quarter and fiscal year 2010, with a revenenue of $8.44 billion in Q4 and growth of 26% YoY. The surprise package was not in the numbers, but the announcement of an Organizational Shuffle in Google's hierarchy. In the official announcement Google said that to streamline decision making and create clearer lines of responsibility and accountability at the top of the company, 

• Starting from April 4, Larry Page, Google Co-Founder, will take charge of Google's day-to-day operations as Chief Executive Officer.
• Sergey Brin, Google Co-Founder, will devote his energy to strategic projects, in particular working on new products.
• Eric Schmidt will assume the role of Executive Chairman, focusing externally on deals, partnerships, customers and broader business relationships, government outreach and technology thought leadership--all of which are increasingly important given Google's global reach. Internally, he will continue to act as an advisor to Larry and Sergey.

The reason though stated, it is not clear on what triggered this change. There have been some debate between the three in terms of some issues, but Eric Schmidt definitely has taken Google from a search company to a company that covers almost every online opportunity possible. It will interesting to see if there is any change in direction during the Larry Page period.

Eric Schmidt outlines Google's priorities, while he is still CEO
Source: Engadget

In a brief article for Harvard Business Review, Eric Schmidt had outlined the priorities for Google as a company. All of the priorities is unsurprisingly related to "mobile" platform, which Google has been really pushing forward and has vested heavily into. The three priorities as per Eric are

• Develop the underlying fast network
• Google has been in discussions and has attempted to setup a trial network zone with 1 GBps download speed. With the infrastructure improvements planned by all the major carriers in US and the adoption of 4G, this could soon be a reality
• Pushing the development of "mobile money"
• Google recently integrated the "Near Field Communication" (NFC) chips in its Nexus S phone and is anticipating most of the future phones to have them too. This is supposed to be a way to enable mobile payments directly from the phone, instead of credit cards
• Increase the availability of inexpensive smartphones
• With Android as Open Source platform, Google is already revolutionizing the mobile market, and it wants to enable web based smartphones soon in the hands of all consumers. In short Google wants to be like the current Nokia of the world.

Port your number to Google Voice, for $20

Source: Engadget

People who jumped on using Google Voice, picked a number earlier on and got locked on with it. If you would like to have an option to change the number, then Google allows that with a one time fee of $10. The details about the way to change the number that has been already assigned is available in this link

While this option is available, the recent change in Google Voice also seems to allow Porting of existing mobile numbers to Google Voice. As per the landing page for the Porting link, the porting option is currently not available for land line and corporate mobile accounts. The porting is a 5 step process and is said to have a one time fee of $20 and any contractual fees from the carrier (as applicable). As noted by some people, this option is being rolled out in phases and may not be available to all users yet. I was able to confirm the availability of this option for my Google Voice account

Apple makes it hard to see the inner working of its devices

Source: ArsTechnica


In a move that is typical to Apple, they do not want the consumes to open up or manipulate the device on their own. It has been confirmed that all the iPhone 4 devices being shipping from the Company (or directly from China) are equipped with a new pentalobe screw that cannot be operated easily by traditional screw drivers. It is also a company policy to replace the existing Philip screws from the older phones, with the new ones when taken for service.

Interestingly the screw appears only on the external areas, to prevent the access to internal components and not inside the devices. As per the report from iFixit and ArsTechnica that the latest MacBook Airs also use a similar screw that prevents easy replacement of the SSD (Solid State Device). Even the procurement of the screw driver for this new screw has been a hazzle, but people always find a way to rip the device apart.


Looks like Apple does not want only the Software to be a black box, but also the hardware. Don't we deserve the right to change what we want in our devices?

Want to root your Android device, then don't buy Motorola

Source: Lifehacker


Android is popular among consumers and tech savvy people for the ease of customization. Most of the devices are easy to root and are experimented with. While this is a strong point of Android, Motorola has been locking down the bootloader on their devices. They have locked down few of their phones from being rooted and from loading unauthorized firmware. This became public in some of the company's statements and a YouTube comment by an employee.


This has led to a huge backlash from the consumer base and Motorola has issued a statement that it will continue in this path, but is working on a way to enable developers to use their device as development platform. What they don't realize is, if they don't do anything, it will be possible as-is. 

Gorilla Glass has competition now, here comes Dragontrail from Asahi

Source: Engadget

Gorilla Glass that is being used most of the consumer devices these days for its high strength and impact resistance, seems to be finally getting some competition in the form of Dragontrail. Dragontrail is the glass that has been announced by Asahi Glass and is claimed to have excellent strength and scratch resistance.

iPhone 4 definitely made Gorilla Glass lot popular and it also showed how the glass was prone to scratches. If Dragontrail is really as good as it claims, then we have the glass for the next generation of devices. Hope they have good production cycle to meet all the crazy demands.  

Author: Vinod