THIS! I WANT THIS! NO CONTRACTS! PAY-AS-YOU-GO! And... for once, finally, it would be something even my mother wants. He has never had (and never intends to ever have) a month-to-month billing or contract service for her cell phone. She wants to be able to go without paying for cell phone service whenever she feels she doesn't need one. I, personally, would just like the security of knowing that I'm budgeted.

THANK YOU GOOGLE for making life for us easier.. and easier.. and better, generally. And without that awful scummy, scarring feeling usually left by corporations like legacy telco's and Microsoft and so on.

HAhahah! I consider myself a security paranoid person, myself, and even I felt the same way as you. Here's the comment I left on the YouTube comments:

OH MY GOD I feel STUPID just listening to these two ladies. Their arguments are incredibly daft! They're casting off a technology that is BETTER than holding a separate piece of plastic, and far more secure by its very nature. If you lose the physical phone, it does NOT necessarily mean that anybody has your contacts or information in general (hello--CLOUD service??), PLUS when was the last time you had a plastic charge card with GPS so that it can be located or the ability to remotely wipe?

On another note... (Fair warning, since it's Wall Street Journal, and they tend to be arseholes, I don't know how long this will remain up there for free, or if it's even reachable outside of the click-link from Google. But, if you check news.google.com for the headline, I'm sure you'll find it there too...)
Ballmer Decries Huge China Sales Hole

As I read the article, I found myself nearly choking on the implication that computers sold without Windows automatically means PIRACY! :P I'm sure there's a lot of that too.. but as I understand it, aren't there also a rampant amount of open-source OS's being used in China? For an article about how Microsoft is slipping a LOT in market share, there seems to be an AWFUL lot of mention of Google Android in there too.

Here's a relevant tidbit for the Nokia fanbois:

The executive later travelled to India, where on Thursday he said Microsoft is looking to work with Finnish mobile handset maker Nokia Corp. to develop "next-generation" mobile devices. India will be a priority market for the company, given that Nokia is a market leader in mobile handsets in the world's fastest-growing telecom market and the second-largest market after China, he said.

"Certainly our partnership with Nokia is an important step forward with us...but the key there is not only to innovate on software, which we will work together over time, but also work on next-generation hardware innovations with them," Mr. Ballmer said while addressing a conference in New Delhi.

heheh... hoo boy. Sooo... let's PUSH PUSH PUSH where Microsoft doesn't sell well and keeeeep sliding that market share down while we ignore the greater markets? By their own admissions about how sales of hardware without MS is outselling hardware in general, this seems like a mistake. In fact.. doesn't this seem like a mistake that Nokia made before? History repeating itself? Couldn't happen to a better company than Microsoft, though. Heh

App recommendation:

Extensive notes:
http://lifehacker.com/5805826/extens...pp-for-android


I haven't tried it, but it sounds wonderful!

Here's the hands on with the Xperia Play:
http://www.androidcentral.com/xperia...l-video-review
VIDEO: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RsQhlESTZec

Great controls, SoC is less than impressive.

This could have been a great product.

Ubuntu? Android? How about Andbuntu..

Introducing the 11.04 release:

http://www.xda-developers.com/androi...a-for-android/

Still using VNC -- which is less than stellar -- but at least it works!

Oh, no go for Honeycomb... yet...

BAM! Yet another company I can add to my list of companies I would buy from, now!

HTC WILL NO LONGER BE LOCKING BOOTLOADERS

From the HTC Facebook page:

‎

"There has been overwhelmingly customer feedback that people want access to open bootloaders on HTC phones. I want you to know that we've listened. Today, I'm confirming we will no longer be locking the bootloaders on our devices. Thanks for your passion, support and patience," Peter Chou, CEO of HTC

Once again, as I've said before, what a breath of fresh air after feeling so much resistance under Nokia. HTC isn't a WONTFIX company! THANK YOU! ...now, let's talk about drivers, shall we?

Damn you! You had my hopes up that Ubuntu got a port of the Dalvik engine (like Maemo/MeeGo did). It would bring "Apps" to a big-boy operating system, big boy.

It is only a matter of time before this happens, and like you, I'll be very glad when it does.

The question is: will I still be using linux on my main machine?

That aside, I'm glad that there is an effort to bridge these two OSs. Why not? They are both open source, right?

Asus is looking to launch a different kind of dock. This has me all hot and bothered:

A phone/tablet dock!

http://www.engadget.com/2011/05/26/a...et-at-computex

Oh my sweet stars! I'm excited that Asus is getting into the (presumably) android handset market, as they are the king of 'low end' devices which really are high-end devices at low end prices -- in hindsight, that rhyme was intentional.

On the other hand, a tablet dock is a very cool proposition. If the dock costs marginally more than the phone (eg $200), and it is as powerful as other tablets (I'm assuming T20), then this would provide the best of both worlds for less.

Lets hope that this speculation is true, and the specs are as charming as the Eee pad transformer.

In the news yesterday morning, Paypal has taken the offensive at Google claiming that Google Wallet has implemented trade secrets illegally brought in by former Paypal execs.


http://www.engadget.com/2011/05/27/p...e-payment-suit

This suit is so timely, that it must have been anticipated. Could it have been a trap?