Google also said that it would sell the Nexus One, which it called a superphone, exclusively through a new online store. Google, which earns the vast majority of its revenue from advertising, said it was dipping its toes in the direct retailing business not to reap profits from the sale of phones but to broaden the availability of handsets running its Android software.
“There is an opportunity to make some margin on the unit sales, but that’s not the objective here,” Andy Rubin, a vice president of engineering in charge of the Android technology, said during a press conference at Google’s headquarters here. “Our primary business is advertising.”
Consumers will be able to buy the Nexus One for $529 unlocked or for $179 with a two-year calling plan from T-Mobile. Google said that the Nexus One would be available on Verizon Wireless in the United States and on Vodafonein Europe later this year. It said it hoped to add other devices and carriers to the direct-to-consumer program in the future.
Some analysts said they were impressed by the speed of the Nexus One and by some of its capabilities. Google has voice-enabled all text boxes in the device, so a user can, for example, compose an e-mail message by speaking into the phone rather than typing. But they expressed disappointment that Google had not done more to shake up the industry by, for example, subsidizing the phone through profits from advertising.
“It would have been nice to see them roll out something really unique,” said Danny Sullivan, the editor of SearchEngineLand and a longtime Google analyst. “It is more evolutionary than revolutionary.”
The Nexus One, which was built by HTC, a Taiwanese electronics manufacturer, has a 3.7-inch screen and runs the latest version of Google’s Android operating system. At less than a half-inch thick and 4.6 ounces, it is slightly thinner and a tad lighter than the iPhone. It has a removable battery, a 5-megapixel camera with an LED flash and can shoot both still images and video.
Google executives called the Nexus One “exemplar” of what is possible with Android today. They said Google was pleased with the success of Android, which in little more than a year has grown from one device on one carrier to 20 devices with 59 carriers around the world. But they decided to work closely with HTC to design the best possible device based on its software.
The only person in the room who did not appear ready to concede that the Nexus One was the best Android device in the market was Sanjay Jha, the co-chief executive of Motorola, which recently introduced the Android-based Droid.
“I think the Nexus One is a good phone; I think the Droid is a good phone,” Mr. Jha said. But Mr. Jha appeared to embrace Google’s plan to market phones directly to consumers. “I see this potentially as an expansion of the marketplace,” he said.
Similarly, cellphone carriers appeared unperturbed by Google’s plan to sell unlocked phones directly to consumers. “We certainly welcome bringing more choices to the marketplace,” said John Taylor, a spokesman for Sprint. Jeffrey Nelson, a spokesman for Verizon Wireless, said his company was aware of Google’s plans for a store when it signed a broad cooperation agreement with Google.
For now, the Nexus One phone works only on cellular networks using the G.S.M. standard, which in the United States is used by AT&T and T-Mobile. It can run on AT&T’s network if the unlocked-phone owner has an AT&T SIM card, but it will work only on the older and slower EDGE network, not the faster 3G network, Google said.
The Nexus One has a high-speed 1-gigahertz Snapdragon chip from Qualcomm, which keeps multiple applications running quickly. It has some 3-D display capabilities, and Google collaborated with Cooliris, a Silicon Valley start-up, to incorporate that company’s technology, which showcases photos along a scrolling wall of images. Google also introduced a version of Google Earth that runs on the Nexus One.
“It looks like a really cool phone,” said Charles Golvin, an analyst with Forrester Research. “But it is not a game changer.”
Peter Chou, the chief executive of HTC, refused to disclose sales forecasts for the Nexus One, but he said that the device “pushes the limits of what’s possible on a mobile phone today.”
While the Nexus One may be a rival to the iPhone, Google and Apple are approaching the cellphone market with very different strategies: Apple makes money by selling phones and Google makes money by selling ads. But there is little doubt that the two companies are on a collision course.
If the Nexus One or other devices sold through Google’s store succeed, they could eat into the appeal of the iPhone. Meanwhile Apple said Tuesday that it had acquired Quattro Wireless, a mobile advertising start-up, indicating that it has plans to attack Google’s core advertising business.
Sharper focus
Pinhole pixels
Stereo imaging
It was more than half a century ago, in a 1955 episode of “The Honeymooners,” that Kramden, the parsimonious bus driver played byJackie Gleason, told his wife, Alice, that he had not yet bought a new television because “I’m waiting for 3-D.”
The wait will soon be over. A full-fledged 3-D television turf war is brewing in the United States, as manufacturers unveil sets capable of 3-D and cable programmers rush to create new channels for them.
Many people are skeptical that consumers will suddenly pull their LCD and plasma televisions off the wall. Beginning at around $2,000, the 3-D sets will, at first, cost more than even the current crop of high-end flat-screens, and buyers will need special glasses — techie goggles, really — to watch in 3-D.
But programmers and technology companies are betting that consumers are almost ready to fall in love with television in the third dimension. In part, it could be the “Avatar” effect: with 3-D films gaining traction at the box office — James Cameron’s “Avatar” surpassed the staggering $1 billion mark last weekend — companies are now determined to bring an equivalent experience to the living room.
Anticipating this coming wave, ESPN said Tuesday that it would show World Cup soccer matches and N.B.A. games in 3-D on a new network starting in June, and Discovery,Imax and Sony said they would jointly create a 3-D entertainment channel next year. The satellite service DirecTV is expected to announce its own 3-D channels at the International Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, where every major television manufacturer is planning to announce 3-D televisions and compatible Blu-ray DVD players on Wednesday.
“The stars are aligning to make 2010 the launch year of 3-D,” said John Taylor, a vice president for LG Electronics USA. “It’s still just in its infancy, but when there is a sufficient amount of content available — and lots of people are working on this — there will be a true tipping point for consumers.”
At that point, the question becomes whether consumers — many of whom have only recently upgraded to costly new high-definition sets — will want to watch in three dimensions enough to pay for the privilege. “I think 90 percent of the males in this country would be dying to watch theSuper Bowl and be immersed in it,” said Riddhi Patel, an analyst at the research firm iSuppli.
But will the experience translate to other entertainment? Ms. Patel said, “You don’t necessarily want the ladies of ‘The View’ sitting around you when you watch them.”
For most consumers, 3-D is still far in the distance. With the announcement this week, the media companies are trying to place themselves at the forefront of an emerging technology, much as they did for HDTV a decade ago.
It took high-definition television about a decade to catch on — to the point where it has become part of the entertainment mainstream, with an adequate stock of HD programming and the sets now cheap enough to entice middle-class buyers. Analysts expect 3-D television to go through the same curve, initially attracting first adopters for whom price is little or no object and gradually moving out to other affluent and then middle-class homes as sets become cheaper and programmers create enough 3-D fare.
Or, of course, the technology could be a total flop.
For decades 3-D was a gimmick for B-movies and occasionally on television (in bad quality with flimsy paper glasses), but newer technology has largely erased those memories. Peter M. Fannon, a vice president at Panasonic, called the new sets “totally different than what one had seen over the last 20 to 30 years.”
In 3-D, television makers see an opportunity to persuade households that have already bought HDTVs to return to the electronics store. Though television sales jumped 17 percent in 2009, the industry needs new innovations to keep the cash register ringing.
“Three-D is an effort by the industry to come up with something that will motivate consumers to trade up,” said Van Baker, an analyst at Gartner Research.
Jeffrey Katzenberg, chief of Dreamworks Animation, said producers were preparing “an enormous surge in 3-D content, with images that are truly beautiful on these new monitors.”
Leading the charge to television, the pioneering sports network ESPN said it would show at least 85 live events on a 3-D channel starting in June. “The sports genre is probably the best suited to exploit this technology,” said Sean Bratches, an executive vice president at ESPN. The company has held preliminary talks with Comcast and other operators about gaining distribution; the 3-D channel could come at an added cost to subscribers. It will go dark when not showing live events.
The joint venture among Discovery Communications, Sony Pictures Entertainment and the Imax Corporation will be a full-time channel featuring natural history, movies, sports, music and other programming.
New 3-D televisions, like the 3-D screens in theaters, work by dividing picture images into two sets, one for each eye. A viewer must wear special glasses, so each eye captures a different image, creating the illusion of depth. Filming entails two connected cameras, one for the left-eye image and the other for the right.
Manufacturers have developed two technologies for 3-D glasses in the home. In so-called polarized glasses, which can cost under a dollar, each lens blocks a set of images transmitted in certain types of light. “Active” glasses, which are better suited for LCD screens in particular, have battery-powered shutters that open and close rapidly, so each eye sees different views of each frame. These glasses can cost up to $100, but television makers are expected to package at least two pairs with each monitor.
On the horizon is technology that allows people to watch 3-D without glasses, but that has severe limitations, like forcing viewers to sit at a certain distance.
Mike Vorhaus, the managing director of new media for Frank N. Magid Associates, a media consulting firm, said 3-D was many years away from widespread adoption. For now, he said, it is “one more appetizer” for consumers who “already have a lot to digest.”
Indeed, a number of hurdles remain, including a lack of production equipment and dueling 3-D transmission standards. But backers like David Zaslav, the chief executive of Discovery Communications, say 3-D is bound to gain attention because consumers and producers are always striving for what looks “closest to real life.”
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Sony Pictures created a site called the Sustainability Institute that predicts human catastrophe on earth happened three years from now.
Institute was declared "after two decades of research astronomer, mathematician, geologist, physicist, engineer, futurist, now we know that in 2012 a series of great power will wreak havoc on our planet".
Even the site explains, how the election after the 2102 world leader, offers a survival kit and ask people to sign up for a lottery to be saved.
But this website is a vehicle to promote disaster movie about the end of the world in 2012 based on the Mayan calendar prediction.
The movie starring John Cusack and directed by Roland Emmerich, who was behind the blockbuster movie Independence Day and The Day After Tomorrow. The film contains scenes of tsunami slammed into the mother ship White House and Los Angeles became the ocean.
According to the website that the scientists have managed to track down Planet X by a previously unknown, and is located on the edge of the solar system and on track to hit Earth.
Dr David Morrison, senior scientist at the NASA Astrobiology Institute said he has received more than 1,000 questions from community members concerned.
There's even a teenager who said they would rather kill myself than watch the end of the world. Dr Morrison said the site was "ethically wrong".
For those who like to facebook, now there are quite a lot of software that can be used facebook. Free software you can use for activities in facebook without having to login on facebook famous heavy enough.
Facebook Using this software, you can still berfacebookan. But before you download these widgets, you need to install the Yahoo Widget Engine first. Once installed, you can install software widgets to manage your facebook below:
1. Facebook Chat 1.0
This application for chatting on facebook.
Size: 1:38 MB | Download here
2. Facebook Video 2.1.7
Software to Download or convert videos and put video Facebook outside of Facebook.
Size: 9 KB | Download here
3. Unblock Facebook Proxy 2.0
To unblock facebook access.
Size: 1.28 MB | Download here
4. Facebook Toolbar 1.3
Brothersoft integration between the browser.
Size: 141 KB | Download here
5. Facebook Desktop 1.0b
Software to view the various events that occurred in facebook.
Size: 464 KB | Download here
6. Facebook Gadget 1.0.0.0
Get notified of facebook on your desktop
Size: 56 KB | Download here
7. Facebook Notifier 1.0
Get notified of facebook on your desktop, change status, etc.
Size: 10 KB | Download here
8. Boost for Facebook 9.0.18
Customize facebook to 300 + facebook skins.
Size: 66 KB | Download here
9. Facebook Exporter for iPhoto 1.0.5
Export photos directly from your facebook
Size: 191 KB | Download here
10. Facebook Chat Notifications 1.3.1
Notifications also, but infonya will emerge from the bottom right corner of your window
Size: 2 KB | Download here
11. Facebook (er) 1.3
Access all your facebook information from the desktop
Size: 250 KB | Download here
Ricochet Xtreme [Game Download]
Nokia N900 Unlocked Phone/Mobile Computer with 3.5-Inch Touchscreen, QWERTY, 5 MP Camera, Maemo Browser, 32 GB--U.S. Version with Full Warranty
