Verizon Hub (New Phone System) coming on 1 February

Verizon Wireless is changing the old kitchen home phone system by releasing the Verizon Hub on 1st February. Publicizing as an innovative home phone system, the Verizon Hub is a home phone system that connects to a broadband connection that allows families to use it as a home phone or an Internet communication system.

The Verizon Hub gives you the following new features:

• Daily local traffic and weather conditions
• Turn-by-turn navigational directions
• Telephone numbers of establishments
• Movie previews and movie ticketing service

You can get this information through the Verizon Hub’s touchscreen interface. Obviously, you get the usual calling features of a home phone system with voicemail, contact list management, & text messaging alerts. The Verizon Hub connects to broadband through Verizon FiOS or DSL or even other high-speed ISPs in the U.S.

The exciting feature is that it’ll enable you to access information & its other functionality even if you are away from the Hub itself. It actually offers some sort of “synchronization”, which allows you to update your home’s Verizon Hub wirelessly from the Verizon Hub website and your updates will be reflected on your Verizon Hub home account. In addition, the Verizon Hub will also allow you to connect your other Verizon devices to the Hub & gives you access to other popular Verizon Wireless services including VZ NavigatorSM, Chaperone, and V CAST contents.

So welcome the new hub…..

Wish Apple on it's 25th Birthday

Yesterday was Apple's Mac 25th birthday. The original Macintosh was released back on January 24th, 1984.

The first Macintosh usually called the Macintosh 128k, was an inauspicious beginning for one of the most exciting companies in the industry. It was expensive & underpowered for the time, and its novel mouse-driven interface was unpopular with techies. But the Mac is a survivor, developing and changing through the years, taking the first dip into the water of portability & later making waves with innovative design and remarkable success.

Mac has inarguably helped the industry as a whole even if you and I am not a Mac user. Personal computing wouldn't be where it is without it. So come with me and wish Mac belated Happy Bisthday!

Gizmodo

Navigate New York City with Google Maps for mobile

New York City Mayor Bloomberg just announced on the Official Google Blog that the city has partnered with Google to create www.nycgo.com and a brand new Official NYC Information Center, located at 810 7th Avenue. On the mobile team, we're particularly excited by how New York City is helping visitors navigate the city by integrating Google Maps for mobile into the experience.

It's easy to plan a trip at home and then use your phone to navigate the city. You can browse www.nycgo.com to find a hotel, restaurants, and things to do in New York. Most web pages embed Google Maps, and using a nifty "send to phone" feature, you can send locations to your phone via text message. Later on, when you're out and about in the city, click the link in the text message to view a map, get directions, and see Street View. Don't forget that you can now get New York City subway routes on your iPhone, BlackBerry, or other smartphone!

Check out the video below to see how things work:


Next time you're out and about in New York City, use Google Maps for mobile to search for places and get directions. If you don't already have Google Maps on your phone, download it by visiting google.com/gmm on your cell phone's browser.

Posted by Ryan Pollock, Product Marketing Manager

No Grand Theft Auto "V" Rockstar Game In 2009

The most recent issue of Game Informer contains "loose talk" that Rockstar Games is readying a new Grand Theft Auto, a fully-fledged follow up to GTA IV for the holidays.
After checking in with the Rockstar folks this week to check out the first downloadable episode, The Lost and Damned, which is due to hit the Xbox 360 next month. A second episode for Grand Theft Auto IV owners is planned to arrive before October 31, 2009, according to parent company Take-2 Interactive, but there is "no truth" to reports that a wholly new retail game, one on par with the scope of Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas, will arrive before the holidays.

And as for the chances of the next Grand Theft Auto game taking place in Tokyo, as speculated by Game Informer's regular rumor column? Further requests for clarification on the subject went unanswered.

So, don't be surprised if the first two downloadable episodes already confirmed for Grand Theft Auto IV are just two of many. Rockstar vice president Dan Houser recently said to USA Today "We feel like we've only scratched the surface in terms of the depth and detail" of Liberty City.

Recap of Macworld 2009

Last week the Google Mobile team joined Googlers from the Geo, YouTube and Mac teams at the 2009 Macworld Expo at the Moscone Center in San Francisco. This year, the Google booth featured fun giveaways, a YouTube upload booth, an Earth Surfer, and an iPhone charging station. Check out some pictures from the Google booth:



Along with demoing mobile products for the iPhone and iPod touch, we also shared the secret behind the hidden options in the Google Mobile App. If you didn't get a chance to stop by the booth at Macworld and haven't discovered the secret, you can get some hints from bloggers, tech sites, or vloggers.

We hope you enjoy the Bells and Whistles! Also, we wanted to give a big thanks to our users and the Mac Observer which gave the Google Mobile App the 2009 Editor's Choice Award!

Posted by Linda Tong, Product Marketing

Samsung sexy projector phone

The Samsung projector can be used to view media stored in phone memory, pull up mobile TV via Korea's T-DMB airwaves, or simply project light, a function luddites may know better as a "flashlight."

The Show's projector has 5 options: "File Viewer," which shows movies in a large-screen format; "Album," for photo slideshows, "Story Telling," which appears to project animated Korean children's stories, TV, and Flashlight, which is just a flashlight.

This phone will never, ever come to the US.

Microsoft's 2009 Upcoming Winmobiles

Microsoft's marketing vice resident announced that for Windows Mobile there'll be a "major announcement" out of his camp at Mobile World Congress next month, which makes sense -- it's the biggest mobile trade show of the year, after all, and we've been expecting WinMo 6.5 for a little while. Most interesting thing is that they're looking to cut down on the total number of phones offered by its licensees in an effort to "be more focused" & do a better job tailoring the platform to the devices in the market.

Makes sense in a way, but on the flipside, one of Windows Mobile's solid advantages over the competition has always been its endless selection of styles & form factors. Taking that away means that WinMo's got to be better by leaps and bounds to keep going head-to-head with the Palms, Apples, RIMs, and Nokias of the world.

$4.9 Billion Hits By 2013 on Mobile Adult Content

The search research firm Juniper Research has lowered the prediction for adult mobile service revenues in 2008 to $2.2 billion i.e. 3.5% lower than the analyst had previously project.

The analyst predicts that the worldwide mobile adult market will hit $4.9 billion by 2013, with a large increase coming from video chat services which are predicted to surpass $1 billion in 2011, with low penetration being offset by high spending levels—in many markets averaging several hundred dollars per user per annum.

Some countries like Indonesia & Switzerland are tightening laws governing adult content, but in Europe and Latin America it’s becoming far more widespread.

Western Europe will remain the biggest market, followed by the Far East.

Getting directions to businesses now easier on Google Maps for mobile

One of my favorite things about Google Maps for mobile is finding businesses on the go. Today we launched a server-side change that makes it easier to get directions to businesses. You can now get directions to restaurants, stores, and other points of interest by entering their names in the start or end point. Consider this example:


Until today, if you tried to get directions and entered a business name, "starbucks" for example, as the end or start point, Google Maps for mobile did not understand that you meant Starbucks the business. Rather, Google Maps for mobile would search for an address with "starbucks" in it.

Google Maps for mobile now recognizes when your end or start point is a business and not an address. Try setting "starbucks" or "mcdonald's" as an end point when getting directions, and you'll quickly see what we mean.

If you've already got Google Maps on your BlackBerry, Nokia S60, T-Mobile G1, iPhone, or other smartphone, then you don't have to download anything to start using this new feature. This is because today's launch was made on our servers, not the Google Maps for mobile client.

But if you don't already have Google Maps for mobile, visit google.com/gmm on your phone to download it today.

Posted by Constantinos Michael, Software Engineer

China issues 3G licences

China issued long-awaited 3G mobile phone licenses Wednesday, a move that will pour billions of dollars into new networks as consumers buy video- and Internet-enabled handsets.

The Ministry of Industry & Information Technology issued licenses covering the three major standards in China, Europe and North America, ministry spokesman Wang Lijian told AFP.

Market leader China Mobile received a license for the Chinese-developed TD-SCDMA standard, he said.

China Unicom got a license for Europe's WCDMA standard while China Telecom will handle North America's CDMA 2000, Wang said. The two international standards require that operators pay royalties to foreign developers.

Third-generation, or 3G, networks enable faster data transmission and advanced services such as wide-area wireless calls, web surfing & video.

The licenses are of huge importance as China is the world's biggest mobile phone market, with more than 634 million subscribers by the end of November.

Analysts said that although it may be years before 3G services become popular in China, issuing the licenses will immediately benefit global equipment makers such as Siemens, Ericsson and Nokia, as well as local rivals.

"Domestic makers like Huawei Technologies and ZTE have been making noticeable progress both abroad & at home. They’re grabbing market shares and posing a challenge to foreign companies," Fang said.

Industry & Information Technology Minister Li Yizhong said last month the carriers were expected to invest about 41 billion dollars in 3G networks over the next 2 years, with at least 29 billion dollars to be spent in 2009.

Govt. has said the spending that will accompany the launch of 3G services is an important part of efforts to battle the slowdown caused by the global economic turmoil.

The companies were not expected to have to pay for the licenses themselves, analysts said, reflecting the government's desire to support the enterprises, which are all state-controlled.

Beijing has been preparing for the roll-out of 3G since the beginning of the decade.

The global 3G industry association, 3rd Generation Partnership Project, first approved China's TD-SCDMA in 2001 as one of the world's 3G standards, but there have been countless delays since.

Analysts have said the delays were partly because China needed more time to perfect its home-grown standard.

Ring in the New Year with Bells and Whistles

Happy New Year!

One evening in Zurich, after a late night cake run, we decided that our iPhone app, Google Mobile App with Voice Search, could do with a little bling. The result of this is a few extra options hidden below the preferences on the Settings tab. Trust us, they're down there... it just might take some perseverance to get to the bottom of things. Just keep trying!

Does blue not go with your new belt? Use the Theme Color to style the app to work with any outfit or match the holiday season.

Tired of the standard beeps and boops during speech recognition? You can try out some alternate sounds made by our teammates in their sugar-induced stupor.

There are a couple of other options hidden in there, too. We had (a little too much) fun implementing these features and hope you enjoy them!

And don't worry. If you don't find them, just come see us at Macworld and we'll show you.

Posted by Nicholas Jitkoff, User Experience Designer