Tech Talk

The great thing about technology is that there’s always something flashy and new just round the corner. It’s even more poignant as the year draws to a close.

The buzz on the Internet is that two possibly game-changing products might be announced in January (maybe, much to the chagrin of the companies releasing new gizmos at the 2010 Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas come Jan 8).

First up is a smartphone from Google dubbed the Nexus One:

via Mashable

It runs the Android operating system and the sleek hardware is supposedly made by HTC. Just take a look at the specs here.

But what might make the Nexus One really compelling and change the landscape of the mobile phone industry is that it might be sold by Google, so you won’t need to go through a telco to get one, or you could just slot in your SIM card on the device to use your existing mobile phone line and data plan.

Google could also take it a step further. What if, instead of SMS, you could send an unlimited number of messages via Google Talk? And, by using its VoIP service, Google Voice, you could have unlimited talktime? Sure, both services are very much dependent on your data plan. But with data plans becoming cheaper by the year, this could possibly free you of being reliant on your telco.

Consumers could win big on this one because no longer would they be tied to a telco just because of the phones it has on its palette (cue the iPhone in its early days). Telcos will have to work harder at making their services reliable, fast and attractive to retain and gain subscribers. By side-stepping the telcos, Google can put its Android phones in the hands of more users and grow its mobile search and other online services further. Putting more smartphones in the hands of people would also open up the market for mobile applications and services.

We’ll be pretty happy if the Nexus One does come out because we’ve yet to see an Android phone on our shores that has really wowed us.

Next up are rumours of the Apple tablet yet again, with the company expected to make a product announcement at its own event in late January. Apple has built quite an empire with just the iTunes App store and the iPhone alone, so it’ll be interesting to see what this new device will bring to the table, if it does exist.

What’s interesting is that some see the tablet as one of the possible solutions to the ailing newspaper industry in the United States, where many newspapers and magazines have closed shop during the downturn. Newspapers and magazines on the iTunes store? Well, Apple’s digital marketplace has proven that it could be an effective distribution system for content, thanks to the multitude of applications, music, movies and TV shows that it currently sells.

What could a digital magazine on a tablet look like?

Mag+ from Bonnier on Vimeo.

And here’s another equally impressive demo:

Content producers are betting that the digital versions of their content, souped up with high-definition, multimedia content, might revive the interest of the masses in terms of eyeballs and paid subscriptions.

These two devices provide just an inkling of the big changes that might come in 2010. How exciting.

Tags: Apple, Digital magazines, Digital newspapers, Google, iPhone, Nexus One

[UPDATE: Yes, thanks to a tweet, it's been confirmed. Check out http://maps.google.com.sg/streetview. Here's where I work, by the way.]

There’s a Google event happening here tomorrow morning and I reckon it’s for the launch of Street View for Singapore.

For the uninitiated, Google Street View provides an almost all-encompassing panoramic view – as if you were standing on the street yourself.

It has allowed couch explorers to check out famous sights like Times Square (above picture) in New York, the Colosseum in Italy and the Eiffel Tower in Paris or just for the regular Joe to get acquainted with directions and venues while they’re making their way around.

The feature, built on top of Google Maps and Google Earth, is already available in places like Taiwan and Japan. If it does get launched tomorrow, it’ll make Singapore the first Southeast-Asian country to get it.

While it’s no secret that the search giant has been capturing images of our streets with regular sightings of its vans and even the Google trike, it comes as a welcome surprise after the launch of live traffic data on Google Maps just two weeks ago (traffic never gets the better of me now that I can check for jams on the major expressways when I board a cab or drive).

The timing is apt given that GPS-enabled smartphones are on the uptake in Singapore and geo-location services are getting pretty popular here. Just check out how Street View works on an iPhone and you can see how it can be a cool utility for everyday use:

(Props to Kurt von Moos for the Google Street View iPhone Tutorial on Vimeo)

There have been other interesting local developments, too. Location-based social networking service Foursquare just added Singapore to its list of cities and its fun and competitive take on awarding virtual points and badges to users for checking-in at locations and discovering new places has contributed to the flurry of activity I’ve seen on it so far.

Also check out the upcoming slick revamp that local-mapping service gothere.sg, which is built on top of Google Maps, is getting soon: http://sneak.gothere.sg/maps

Spotted any other cool location-based services or applications available in Singapore? Chime in by leaving a comment below.

Tags: Google, GPS, location-based services

Finally, smartphones based on the Google-backed Android operating system are starting to come of age. The OS will soon come in its second major iteration, and will power smartphones from the likes of Motorola, HTC and Samsung.

What this means is consumers can start choosing from a plethora of quality devices (as opposed to the one and only iPhone) that run on a modern and snappy mobile OS that provides an almost desktop-like Internet browsing experience, an amply-stocked application store that can help extend the abilities of their devices, and simple contacts integration with Facebook and Google accounts.

Death to the mediocre smartphone, I say.

Sony Ericcson is the latest to join the Android fold with its announcement of the XPERIA X10.

The impressive-looking hardware (a 3.5G smartphone with 4-inch touchscreen and 8.1-megapixel camera) is accompanied by a slick pair of custom applications, Timescape and Mediascape, which provide much more refined experiences with media playback and communicating with contacts.

Have a look at what the XPERIA X10 might be capable of when it gets on shelves in the first quarter of 2010:

Over in the United States, Motorola’s new Droid smartphone (it could possibly be called the Milestone if it arrives here) is getting lots of airtime for being a possible iPhone-killer with its well-specced hardware – a fast mobile processor that’s coupled with a 3.7-inch touchscreen and a 5-megapixel camera with dual-LED flash:

Smartphones won’t be the only devices that will get loaded with Android. Netbooks will soon be graced by the ‘droid, too:

Tags: Apple, Google, iPhone, Mobile, Smartphone