Is This The Google Nexus Tablet Passing Through At The FCC?

20120531-022502.jpg

Google’s annual developer conference, Google I/O is a tad bit less than a month away. The conference, which opens on June 27th in San Francisco will bring out a slew of new Google product news.

We are all expecting to hear more about the Google Chrome Box, Google Glass and the rumored Google Nexus tablet. Google is rumored to be launching a seven inch tablet to compete with the Amazon Kindle Fire in size, price and content delivery.

Our friends at Phone Arena are reporting by way of Engadget and the FCC that the Asus MeMo Pad 370T has just crossed the desks of the FCCs approval center in Columbia Maryland.

So why is this significant to the Google Nexus Tablet?

Well Asus showed off the seven inch Tegra 3 powered device at the International Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas back in January. However they immediately shelved it when rumors started swirling that Asus had been tapped for the wi-fi only Google tablet.

PhoneArena and others, speculate (with good reason) that the MeMo Pad 370T that the FCC is seeing right now, is in fact the Google tablet without the internal name changed.

We all seem to be in agreement that the Google Nexus tablet will be at least one of the devices given away at Google IO. Seeing it cross the FCC at the tail end of May, further solidifies that thinking.

Source: PhoneArena

[Opinion] The Facebook Phone And What You’ll Actually See

 

 

 

This article is based on theories in which I’ve presented to people before certain sites took what was an idea and called it their own. I’m basing a couple of the features/products within based on speculation and possible rumors in which have happened in the past and ones we’ll surely hear in the close future when it comes to the Mythical Facebook Phone…

 

Read More…

Facebook Preparing For Mobile Hardware Battle?

20120527-180040.jpg

Reports are coming hot and heavy this Memorial Day weekend, that Facebook is reinvigorating it’s “Facebook Phone”. Business Insider and the New York Times are staying on top of the story.

According to SAI (sourced to the New York Times) Mark Zuckerberg is personally vetting engineers to join the Facebook team. According to reports he has several iPhone engineers and even an iPad engineer making the shift from Cupertino to Menlo Park.

Zuckerberg has been apparently asking all kinds of tough questions of his new Facebook Phonre recruits, including what chips are in the iPhone.

Potential investors were reportedly concerned about Facebook’s mobile presence when Zuckerberg took Facebook on their pre-IPOD road show.

There is no time frame for the reported release of the Facebook Phone. The device has been rumored for the past three years.

Last year Facebook endorsed two HTC Android devices, the HTC Salsa and the HTC Cha Cha. Both devices featured deep Facebook integration including a dedicated Facebook button on the front of both phones. Despite the social network having over 800 million members, the HTC Salsa and HTC Cha Cha were just marginal selling phones.

The HTC Cha Cha debuted in the US on AT&T. Despite having heavy Facebook integration and even being the sponsor phone for a reunited Blink 182 tour, the Status didn’t even last a quarter.

So why do they think they’ll have better success? Well one piece of the puzzle is an app store. Facebook already had some heavy hitters developing apps for the Facebook platform. Zynga was even able to grow large enough to go public based on the success of their Facebook social games.

Zynga and Facebook have been working hand in hand together now for years. Zynga may be waiting for the offices Facebook phone before releasing mobile versions of their blockbuster hits FarmVille and CityVille.

Facebook’s mobile apps are consistently top five in all other app stores. They just recently release the Facebook camera app which provides deep integration with Facebook, and the ability to post up to 30 photos at a time to Facebook. The Facebook camera may explain the reasoning behind the purchase of Instagram and Light Box

Bye Bye Cisco Cius Android Tablet

20120526-191508.jpg

If you haven’t heard of the Cisco Cius Android tablet you are not alone. That may be the reason that Cisco has decided to stop manufacturing the hybrid business phone tablet device.

The Cisco Cius was not marketed to direct consumer channels. Instead Cisco was hoping to make the device a must have for enterprise customers.

PC World’s Tony Bradley suggests that it’s this direct to enterprise philosophy that ultimately resulted in the devices death. More and more companies are supporting the BYOD (bring your own device) mantra and with employees bringing their own iPads or Samsung Galaxy Tabs to work, there’s no room for a $750 enterprise Android tablet that can’t even access the Google Play Store.

Cisco’s OJ Winge reiterated that sentiment in a Cisco blog post “These stats underscore a major shift in the way people are working, in the office, at home and on-the-go, a shift that will continue to gain momentum.”

This isn’t the first innovative Cisco product to disappear from the company’s line up, last year they discontinued the Flip camera which was very popular with consumers.

Source: PC World

Israeli Startup: Drippler A Must Have App For All Android Users VIDEO INTERVIEW

We got to talk to the team behind the must have Android app called Drippler. Drippler has already seen 1.5 million downloads in the Google Play Store and has a 4.8 rating.

Drippler is a unique mobile app that provides all kinds of information about your Android phone. Once you download the free app from the Google Play Store it detects which Android phone or tablet that you have. From there it aggregates all the information about your phone.

Drippler finds information from manufacturer websites, blogs, app review sites, tech sites and forums and consolidates it into one easy readable stream for you. Now you’ll never be behind when a firmware update comes out or a new app comes out that works better on your device. You can cut through the clutter of the 8 million Android blogs out there (ok there’s not really 800 Android blogs out there, but there’s a lot).

Drippler blends a unique mix of all the relevant information about the phone or tablet that you have the app installed on. If you have multiple Android devices, Drippler will show you just the information for the device you have the app on. So say you have a Samsung Galaxy S II and an Asus Transformer Prime. Drippler on your Galaxy S II will give you Galaxy S II information and Drippler on your Asus Transformer Prime will given you info on that particular tablet.

Check out our interview with the founder below:

Linkage:

Download Drippler from the Google Play Store here:

See more of our coverage from TechCrunch Disrupt NY 2012

Nibletz is on a nationwide sneaker-strapped startup road show, find out more here

Google+ Updates Its Android App To Mimic It’s Update To iOS

Google has finally updated their Android app to follow the model of the iOS version they released to make the mobile experience “more beautiful.” Many Android users were pretty jealous to see the beauty iOS users were beholding, and they now can finally have it themselves. With some glitches though, the tablet version is still a little lacking as seen below. Most of the update takes what was a bland boring application and just makes it pop with the photos and posts, as well as some  other major updates that we’ve all been waiting for and hoping for.

Read More…

Android Developers Introduces An Amazing App Analytics Tool You’ll Really Appreciate

Earlier this month we told you about Appreciate, your personal Android app store. With the Appreciate app you get recommended apps based on the apps you have on you already have on your #Android phone and apps based on what your friends like as well.

Israeli startup Triapodi has already had tremendous success with Appreciate, because of their “Appreciate Relevance Engine”.

Now they’ve opened up something very exciting for developers. Appreciate, for all intents and purposes, has opened up their backend for developers to see and organized it in an easy to understand and visually appealing UI that they call Appreciate STATS.

If you’re among the hundreds of thousands of people who have already downloaded Appreciate, you’ll agree it is a must-have free app that cuts through the clutter of the Google Play Android Market to help users get the most out of their mobile experience by delivering apps perfectly tailored to individual interests.  Appreciate is also the only comprehensive Social App Market for Android, empowering users to locate others within the Appreciate community, and to discover and install apps that are being used by people with common interests.

If you’re a developer, marketer or simply an observer of the Android world, making sense of the marketplace is often a crapshoot. Appreciate STATS, available for public use starting on or about May 21, 2012, provides exclusive, powerful insights into the Android consumer and individual apps based on the real usage of hundreds of thousands of Appreciate users.  Appreciate STATS goes far beyond rankings based on the mere number of downloads to deliver detailed, segmented information about the usage of the most popular apps and the efficiency of individual app pages.

Appreciate has opened up an unheard of amount of data for developers.
You can see the most popular apps, demographic data, apps that are like the most popular apps, engagement, even “Android Market Funnel” that gives developers a break down based on sex.

Appreciate also gives great data about devices as well. Like Millennial Media’s Mobile Mix report, Appreciate provides real data on handsets based on the handsets that download the Appreciate personal app store app and the handsets that then in turn download apps.  This can be very valuable to a developer because they developer will know which handsets they need to develop for.

The stats dashboard offers developers data filters as well:

Geography: North America, Europe and Asia
Gender
Age Group: 13-20,20-25,25-30,30-40 and 40+
Category: Multimedia, Lifestyle, Sports,Social, Health,Books,Tools, Travel,Shopping

As you can see Appreciate has opened up a treasure trove of data for developers. Data, that until now was absent from their arsenal.

Check it out today at stats.appreciate.mobi  oh and did we mention it’s free?

 

Unlocked Samsung Galaxy S III Available For Pre-Order In US

If you absolutely can’t wait to get ahold of the brand new Samsung Galaxy S III, and you don’t mind paying full retail we’ve got great news for you. Thanks to the wonderful folks at Amazon you can now preorder the unlocked version of the Samsung Galaxy S III in the United States.

There are no definite launch dates set for the US carriers. We’re supposed to hear about US carriers at a Samsung event in the US in the coming weeks. However, there is a release date for the unlocked version via Amazon and that date is just a week or so away on June 1.

The unlocked version will be of the GSM variety and work on T-Mobile and AT&T as previous unlocked flagship Samsung Android devices always have.

The preorder will only set you back $799 so go on you know you want to! Hit the link below.

Preorder Link

Source: Phandroid

 

Now Your Android Phone Can Tell You When You Can Play Diablo III

Our gaming editor, Damien Rane, is having the hardest time getting a review of Diablo III published, and of course it’s no fault of his own. Like millions of other American gamers Rane was out at midnight on the night of Diablo III’srelease and home ready to play, but couldn’t.

Most Diablo fans as well as WoW fans are very familiar with the scenario. Blizzard, the company behind both titles, sells millions and millions of units but never seems to upgrade their server farm. You would think with the popularity of their two franchise titles they would be able to support their custom base on opening night.

What’s more disturbing is that while WoW is an MMORPG, Diablo III, is for the most part a single player game. There’s no real need for the player to be connected to the server throughout the entire game, aside from DRM. But they’re game to do what they want with it.

So what’sthe problem?

Any frequent Blizzard game player knows about “error 37” which basically equates to the Blizzard servers being down. On Diablo IIIs release night Twitter, Facebook and Google Plus were abuzz with pissed off customers who bought Diablo III and took to social networks to report they couldn’t play the game because Blizzards battlement servers were down.

There’s good news now though, at least for Android users. Android developer Eluamous has released an Android app and widget that will let you know when the servers are ready two go. No longer will you have to waste your precious time, checking to see if the battle net servers are ready.

The app is getting rave reviews in the Google Play Store. The develop has also made similar apps for other games including World of Warcraft (WoW).

The best part is that the app is free. So download it and get back to playing.

Download link Here

Source: WebProNews

 

T-Mobile Starting BOGO Promotion This Weekend Through Memorial Day

We’ve been waiting for one of those big buy one, get one free promotions at T-Mobile. They typically hold this kind of sale for one day only like Valentine’s day or Father’s day. This year the fourth largest carrier in the US is holding their BOGO event starting today (Friday May 18th) through Memorial Day Weekend (May 28th).

The promotion is working the exact same way that it has in the past. If you buy one new smartphone, and sign up for a new 2 year agreement, you get the second smartphone of equal or lesser value free. Of course the second smartphone also has to be signed up for a new two year contract.

This time around T-Mobile is calling the promotion “Magenta Deal Days” and offers a mail in rebate card for up to $329 towards the cost of the second phone.

That includes the new HTC One S and all of T-Mobiles 4G lineup of smartphones.HTC® One™ S 4G, Samsung Galaxy S® II 4G, HTC Radar™ 4G, Sonic® 4G Mobile Hotspot and the Samsung Galaxy S® Blaze™ 4G.

“Our latest ‘Magenta Deal Days’ promotion continues our commitment to giving our customers the ability to enjoy all the 4G experiences of a smartphone on our best plans ever,” said John Clelland, senior vice president of marketing, T-Mobile USA. “What’s better than getting one of the sleekest, fastest 4G devices on the market? That would be getting two for the price of one.”

Source: MobileBurn

 

UPDATED – London Startup: Lightbox Acquihired By Facebook

Facebook is obviously using their last days of independence to scoop up whatever companies they want. Of course everyone knows about the $1 billion dollar acquisition of Instagram. Facebook also recently acquired social discovery app Glancee which uses Facebook as it’s backbone and was the closest competition to Highlight at South By Southwest in Austin this year.

Now we’ve learned that Facebook has acquired the seven man team behind Lightbox. Including designer Giles Peyton-Nicoll, the companies creative director and the driving force behind their UI.

Giles Peyton Nicoll The Creative Director behind Lightbox, acquired this week by Facebook, has announced plans to launch a new global design consultancy and build a portfolio of brands “as cherished as Coca-Cola, Apple and Nike”.
As the seven-strong Lightbox engineering team prepares for its relocation to the States, Creative Director and Product Designer Giles Peyton-Nicoll is staying in London and is set to launch a new agency.  Full Press Release Below

No financial details were announced. The Lightbox team is based in London, so it’s also unclear where they will work out of or if they will all move to Silicon Valley.

Lightbox is a photo sharing app for Android. They debuted last year and had a pod set up at Google IO. The service is very similar, at least in the sharing aspect, to Instagram. In fact, before Instagram arrived on the Android platform Lightbox would send out emails to it’s user base touting it as a better than Instagram and available on Android. They continued with the same marketing message after Instagram launched on Android just days before the Facebook acquisition.


It was widely reported that on the Facebook investor road show, the company was highly criticized on their mobile efforts. Despite pushing out regular updates of the Facebook app some investors seemed worried that more and more users are resorting to the mobile device and that Facebook needs to make sure they own that position the way they do with social media.

It’s also obvious that Facebook is taking photography very seriously. They recently updated their mobile site and mobile apps to enlarge the size of photos on users walls and news feeds. With the acquisitions of both Instagram and Lightbox they must be working on some bad ass mobile photo app to integrate into the social network.

source: VentureBeat

 

FULL PRESS RELEASE: 

LIGHTBOX CREATIVE TO LAUNCH NEW CONSULTANCY

The Creative Director behind Lightbox, acquired this week by Facebook, has announced plans to launch a new global design consultancy and build a portfolio of brands “as cherished as Coca-Cola, Apple and Nike”.
As the seven-strong Lightbox engineering team prepares for its relocation to the States, Creative Director and Product Designer Giles Peyton-Nicoll is staying in London and is set to launch a new agency.
The 41-year-old is a world-leading branding strategist with a wealth of experience in designing and developing global brands. He founded boutique design agency Aspect, which sold to GYRO in 2000. He then took on a Creative Director role at GYRO, helping them achieve global recognition.
After leaving GYRO in 2002 he became a Digital Strategy and Design Consultant working on global brand, advertising and marketing campaigns for some of the best London digital agencies.
With extensive experience in brand guardianship for many of the world’s favourite brands, his true talent lies in creating successful brands from conception – his last two brand identities – Nakama and Lightbox – have become global success stories.
Mr Peyton-Nicoll said: “I wish my Lightbox colleagues all the best. We had a great time developing the product and I am very proud to have played a major part in the development of what is now a globally-recognised digital brand.
“I’m now looking to the future and the exciting prospect of creating similar powerful brands, as cherished as Coca-Cola, Apple and Nike, for my new clients.”

Nibletz is the voice of #startups “everywhere else” check out these new stories

We’re on a sneaker strapped nationwide road trip, check it out and support us here 

California Startup: Smule Releases Hit App Songify To Android

At CES 2011 (last years CES not this years) hip hop producer/artist T-Pain told us personally and on video, that the “I am T-Pain” app would be coming soon to Android. Well for whatever reason that didn’t happen. But, there’s good news from the same startup developer Smule.

In addition to crafting the “I am T-Pain” app for iOS, which makes anyone sound like T-Pain, Smule has released a handful of other, intensely popular, interactive “music” apps, including Songify. If you’re an Android user and you’ve every seen or played with Songify on a friend’s iOS device then you know how addicting creating your own songs with the app can be.

What makes Songify so great? Well we had a chance to talk with Smule ahead of today’s announcement and here’s what they said:

“Songify has reached 9MM users on iOS and over 120MM songs have been created to date. We get multiple requests a day for users asking us to release Songify on Android. 
Our “secret sauce” is using sophisticated artificial intelligence technology to make music creation accessible to non-musicians. Anyone can make music with Songify. Just talk into the phone, and Songify turns your speech into melody. We also made the user interface super-simple, so everyone from the ages of 3 to 93 can (and do!) use the app with ease. When you make music creation so easy, it gives people a powerful new mode of self-expression. “
That’s  a lot of user created songs.
It’s been no secret that with midi api’s gone from Android since the release of Android 2.0, Android has lacked in the music creation category. Until now, all the cool creative music apps were on iOS only.
Smule released their popular Songify app to the Google Play store this morning. In addition to Songify and I am T-Pain, Smule is the developer of other hit music apps for iOS like Magic Guitar, Ocarina, Glee Karaoke and Magic Piano (which will hit Android next month)
If you can’t wait to try it, grab it here https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.smule.songifyin the Google Play Store.

Ur Daycare Locator Aims To Locate

Ur Daycare Locator aims to locate local daycare centers and schools for your child. The service has been tailored to give raw user-generated reviews and easy to use tools to help you make the best choice for you daycare needs. With only a few simple steps you will be able to find several daycare centers in your area or specified area and  get directions to them via your favorite maps application or browser on your Android device. The app is now only available on Android, but will soon be available on iTunes for your iOS device as well.

 

 

 

 

 

Start screenAt the home screen you can easily access the Directory, Maps, Search, Favorites, Applications and more.

 

SearchThis is the simple search option that will help you find any publicly listed daycare center within up to 20 miles from your specified chosen or current location.

 

Results Results are nice and cleanly listed for your choosing pleasure.

 

Map Maps view give you a better idea of how far your commute to and from the daycare centers will be.

 

Get Directions With the option to open a daycare centers address directly from your favorite map app or browser, you’ll have no trouble at all getting navigation instructions or driving directions to your favorite daycare center.

 

Apply Ur Daycare Locator makes it even easier by providing an easy to fill out application form that can be sent directly to your chosen daycare center. You don’t have to print and deliver your applications anymore.

 

Favorite List The favorites list makes it easy for you to save and access the daycare centers contact info when you need it.

 

Conclusion 

After using this app for a few weeks running through the different features while looking for the perfect daycare center to enroll my son at, I’ve found that Ur Daycare Locator has saved me a ton of time and allowed me to discover daycare centers that I didn’t even know were in my area. It is an important decision to pick where our children spend their time and who will be watching them. Let Ur Daycare Locator help you find the perfect daycare for your kid(s). Give the app a try on Android from the Google PLAY Store here Ur Daycare Locator for Android or if you’re an iOS user you’ll have to wait a bit. It will be available on iTunes soon.

 

Source: Ur Daycare Locator

Hands On With The LG Optimus 4X HD VIDEO

At CTIA 2012 last week in New Orleans we got some face time with LG’s new flagship phone the LG Optimus 4X HD. As you can see they have a great naming scheme going on.

The LG Optimus 4X HD has a great feature set. You’re looking at a 4.7″ 720 HD IPS display and Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich. LG has done just a tiny bit of tweaking to the UI so you won’t have too hard of a time getting used to it.

There’s an 8mp camera on the back. The camera also features a BSI sensor for better low light shots and of course an LED flash.

What people are really anxious about is the Nvidia Tegra 3 processor which operates with 4+ 1 cores for maximum performance. LG has also included a 2150mah battery to keep the LG 4X HD charged up for when you need it most.

The downside though, is that there’s been no formal date announced for the LG Optimus 4X HD in the United States. It seems that none of the currently available quad-core processors can play nice with American 4G/LTE. This is starting to be a huge drawback for American Android and mobile enthusiasts who’ve been waiting to get their hands on some quad-core technology.

LG will probably rebrand this phone for the United States. Hopefully they will hold the key on how to get a quad-core phone to work over here.

Just to make sure though, we asked the guy in the video who said there was no pricing or availability information available for the United States.

Check out the video: