Archive for the ‘Google’ Category

Motorola and Google Working on Android Tablet, Acer Waiting for Android 3.0 to Release Slate

Aug 21, 2010 Acer, Google, Motorola


Google and Motorola are apparently teaming up to develop an Android 3.0 – based tablet, with the carrier selling it being Verizon, if everything goes the right way. The device is supposed to support 3G connectivity, maybe even LTE and its release date is scheduled for sometime around Q4 2010 or Q1 2011. The slate will feature a Tegra 2 chipset, a 10 inch touch display and its case will be much thinner than the one on the iPad.

These specs aren’t final and they might change, specially considering this is an Android 3.0 device we’re talking about, a platform we don’t know that much about. In the meantime, DigiTimes claims that Acer is working on a Gingerbread slate as well, one that will hit the market in early 2011 and possibly feature a 1GHz CPU and 10 inch display.

[via Phandroid]

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Verizon to Launch a Google Chrome OS Tablet in November

Aug 18, 2010 Google

We’ve heard about Verizon preparing for the launch of a Motorola tablet and a Samsung slate was also spotted in its roadmap, but what about a Google Chrome OS device? A mystery source told downloadsquad.com that Google and HTC are building a Chrome OS tablet, one that will be sold by Verizon starting November 26.

This launch date makes sense, since it’s Black Friday 2010, possibly the busiest shopping day in the States. We expect the new slate to be subsidized and arrive with a decent price tag, enough to make the iPad blush with shame. Should we go as far as to hope for a free tablet on Verizon contract?

Hardware-wise the Google Chrome OS gizmo will be based on NVIDIA’s Tegra 2 platform and it’ll also feature a 1280 x 720 pixel multitouch display, 2GB of RAM, a 32GB SSD and support for WiFi, Bluetooth and 3G connectivity. There’s also a GPS on board, plus a webcam and expandable storage via a multi-card reader.

[via downloadsquad]

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Google I/O Day 1 Round Up: HTML5 Love, WebM Open Video Format, Chrome Web Store

May 20, 2010 Google

The Google I/O event in San Francisco kicked off yesterday, as a two day show taking place at Moscone West. 5,000 people from 66 countries will participate and they’ll listen to over 200 speakers, also witnessing 180+ developer demonstrations and participating in over 90 technical sessions, breakouts and chats.

Now, let’s see what Day 1 was all about:

HTML5 was shown a lot of love by all participating companies and speakers, so Steve Jobs was not entirely wrong when praising this technology. On the stage, Google demoed HTML5 and Gmail in Chrome, to show its power and we also saw MugTug in action, a photo editing software, everything centred on Chrome and the capacity of HTML5 technologies.

A new open source web video format was announced, WebM and it turns out that right now, YouTube videos are being converted for this project. Mozilla also shows its support for the new format, as well as Opera, who demoed WebM on its browser. Welcome to the age of the open, standard format for web video!

Next up, Google officials announced the Chrome Web Store, the ideal place for finding and buying applications to use online. Games are also included (stuff like Plants vs. Zombies, very popular on the iPhone/iPad) and tons of other web apps. Sports Illustrated was also demoed on stage, in HTML5 and the last part of Google’s presentation was all about business and cloud solutions.

VMWare and Google have partnered and will provide apps that run on clouds, either public or private. The two companies will bring an open-source layer for the cloud to the market, with VMWave handling the backend side of the biz. Google Web Toolkit and SpringSource have been integrated in the project. Last, Google App Engine for Business was announced, with support for SSL, SQL, forma SLA and pro support.

An important announcement was the one that Google Wave is not completely open to the public, without invitation, as part of the Google Apps suite. Google I/O continues today and if you want more info you can get it from Twitter (@googleio and hashtag #io2010) or from the show’s YouTube channel.

[Google Blog via Mashable]

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Chrome OS PC Coming in Two Weeks? Tablet/Netbook or Desktop?

May 17, 2010 Acer, Google

While we thought we’d have to wait till November to see a real life Chrome OS PC, it seems that the hardware will be available two weeks from now. Apparently, the company that’s first on board with this initiative is Acer, developing a netbook or maybe a tablet, that relies on the platform.

Rumours claim that Acer will show the product during Computex Taipei 2010, the biggest computer exhibition in Asia, starting on June 1st. We’re not sure if Acer plans on running Chrome OS on a netbook, so it might be a tablet or a mere prototype piece of hardware, with a beta version of the operating system on it.

The seven time second boot is what’s very appealing right now, no matter the hardware that Chrome OS lands on. Add apps in a cloud to that, plus a free and simple interface and we’re all set.

[via Dvice]

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Google and Verizon Announce New Tablet

May 12, 2010 Google

The Wall Street Journal recently confirmed that Google will bring a tablet to the market in cooperation with carrier Verizon Wireless. Pricing, manufacturer, launch date and OS of choice have yet to be revealed, although the platform options are a bit limited: Android or Chrome OS.

Verizon’s CEO told The Wall Street Journal that the carrier is looking at Google’s full list of technologies in order to incorporate them into the new device. This is not shocking news by any means, since Google’s CEO spoke of a tablet since April and we’ve seen tons of images leaked on the web, portraying the device (not confirmed to be real, though).

This announcement increases the competition between Apple and Google, as Android recently surpassed the iPhone on the US smartphone market. Let’s see who makes the tablet and how well it will perform, in comparison to the iPad.

[via mashable]

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Android Tablet Prototype Shown Running Flash and Adobe AIR (Video)

May 9, 2010 Google

A recent web 2.0 event in San Francisco included the presentation of an Android tablet prototype, that can be seen in action in the video below. This supposed Google tablet is able to run Flash and Adobe AIR with ease. The first video shows Wired.com Adobe AIR app running full screen mode.

The second video, available after these lines, shows a YouTube video playing on the tablet’s browser. It’s interesting to mention that the presenter said that this device is an Android prototype by Adobe, whatever that means.

We were expecting to see a Google tablet by now, since the new visual keyboard implemented in the Google Search sure looks like touchscreen material.

[via Phandroid]

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Google Purchases BumpTop; Innovative 3D Multitouch Desktop Ready for Android Tablet?

May 2, 2010 Google

The Google Tablet is getting closer to reality, it seems and a hint in this direction could be the recent acquisition of BumpTop, done by the search engine giant. In case this is not a familiar name to you, here’s the BumpTop 3D multitouch desktop UI, shown in action in the following video:

Till now, the software ran on Windows 7 and OS X, but it seems it’ll only stick with Google for now, so we might see it on Chromium or Android OS. BumpTop is officially “no longer for sale” and we take this purchase as a sign pointing towards the launch of the Google Tablet. We paranoid?

[via mobilewhack]

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Google’s Android Tablet Coming Soon

Apr 13, 2010 Google

The rumour of the day in “Tablet Land” is that Google is preparing its very own Android tablet, or better said “an e-reader that functions like a computer”. New York Times claims that Google CEO Eric Schmidt recently detailed the mystery device during a party in LA.

The main appeal of this tablet is the fact that it relies on Android and it has access to cloud solutions, so it’ll easily rival the iPad, specially if the hardware on board performs well enough. It’s important to mention that Android Marketplace has become a great app store, although it’s way behind iTunes App Store, but still second best is reasonable enough.

Word has it that Google has been working with an Asian partner on this device, in order to keep matter discrete and the specs a secret. Odds are that this partner is Samsung, but LG could also be an option. What about HTC?

[via tgdaily]

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Google Tablet Shown on Video, Running Chrome OS

Feb 2, 2010 Google

Just a week after seeing Apple’s tablet, we’ve come across a video showing Google’s Chrome OS running on top of a prototype tablet. This doesn’t necessarily mean that Google will be making a tablet of its own, but as long as their software is on board, the device is still a challenger for the iPad and any other similar device, for that matter.

These images were launched on the web by Glen Murphy, Google’s Chrome UI lead designer and they show the result of the brainstorm process of the team behind Chrome OS. Expect multiple Google Tablet models to be launched, since there’s not a single device using Chrome OS, but more, with screens ranging from 5 to 10 inches.

We have to mention that the Google Tablet seems a big bigger than the Apple iPad, which is not bad, specially with that cool virtual keyboard. Also, this neat concept supports multitasking and you should know you can watch in action in the video below:

[via Slashgear and iSpazio]

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