The AppsLab

By now, you should know I’m a huge Clay Shirky (@cshirky) fanboi. He’s published in weird places sometimes, like earlier this week in the WSJ Online edition. Check out his essay called “Does the Internet Make You Smarter?” before Murdoch (not the one with a k from the A-Team, the other one) slaps a paywall in… Read More

One feature of Android I haven’t seen hyped much is voice input, which was introduced in 2.1. This was mentioned at Google IO during one of the keynotes, and I remember thinking “that’s pretty freaking cool.” Maybe I don’t read the right coverage, or maybe it’s totally yesterday’s news (not literally, but kind of funny… Read More

I finally caught up on the particulars from yesterday’s WWDC keynote, and I’m feeling better about this post. I have a couple takeaways up front. First, Google’s surprise freebie of HTC EVOs at Google IO this year was incredibly smart, even if the 5,000 odd units they commandeered hurt the overall stock, in turn dominoing… Read More

As part of our ongoing work with the internal instance of WebCenter (@oraclewebcenter), Rich (@rmanalan) has released a bookmarklet that allows for quick and easy sharing of a link to WebCenter, no need to copy the link and navigate to WebCenter. The bookmarklet creates a message board entry in your personal space (if you select… Read More

So many questions. How does it stay balanced? How much power does it take to rotate that tire? Where are the brakes? Riding this monster has to burn your legs. I’m thinking you don’t need brakes, just let friction do the work. Anyway, enjoy the video, from LikeCOOL h/t Gizmodo.

I’m fired up this morning. The email account we use for this blog is a target for spam, which is expected when you include an address on your site. I totally get that. I routinely see 1-5 spam emails a day and occasionally, a phishing one. I’m really not sure why the PayPal phishing email I… Read More

I found this post fascinating, “How The Mainstream Media Stole Our News Story Without Credit.” It’s about a news item you might have seen, namely the lawsuit a woman filed against Google after she followed Google Maps’ walking directions and was struck by a car on the route. Attribution is a sticky subject online. Over… Read More

So, the iPhone OS has had the ability to take a screenshot since 2.0, simply hold down the sleep and home buttons for a couple seconds, and click, you’ve got a screenshot. This is a great feature, and one lacking from Android’s base OS, i.e. there’s no button combination or included app that takes screenshots.… Read More

Lately, the content here has been all about Android and my new HTC EVO, but don’t despair, it’s not over yet. Today, I test drove two of the sweet features that Froyo (Android 2.2) has promised, tethering and wifi hotspot. I see these each as a jump forward, since I’ve been tied to AT&T’s Edge… Read More

If you’re like me, you’ve probably used a bunch of phone numbers throughout the course of your life. Maybe you moved or changed cell phone providers back in the dark ages when you couldn’t bring your number with you. Ever get the itch to call one of those numbers, or maybe you just wonder who… Read More

I’ve spent a few days talking about smartphones, and as I mentioned in my EVO review post, I’ve switched away from the iPhone, which I loved for three years. With the iPhone 4 on deck to wow us all with new features, I’m wondering what it would take to switch again. I’m talking about between… Read More

I promised a review of the HTC EVO I got at Google IO (@googleio) last week. When I first started tinkering with Android on the Motorola Driod prior to IO, I had no intention of switching from my iPhone. In fact, I debated even opening the Droid, since I planned to sell it after the conference.… Read More

When I read Louis Gray’s EVO review, something struck me as funny. Not only did he get his HTC EVO for free at Google IO, but he also got his iPhone 3G for free by winning a contest. Hmm, we here at the ‘Lab have benefited from free phones as well, and not just at… Read More

So, here comes a companion piece to yesterday’s missive “Why Android Will Win.” I’ll be clear up front. I do think Android will win, and by win, I mean surpass the iPhone to challenge Blackberry as the #2 smartphone of choice worldwide. There was some question as to what “win” actually means, which is why… Read More

You probably know by now that attendees of Google IO last week received a surprise gift, the HTC EVO 4G. Thank you Google. My wife was in shock that I got not one, but two phones for attending IO. Great, right? This makes a lot of sense for Google, since they need more Android developers… Read More

You’ve probably heard about Square (@square) by now. I mentioned it last week apropos of Alex Payne’s (@al3x) departure from Twitter; Square is the brainchild of Jack Dorsey (@jack), one of Twitter’s cofounders. Some of the Square team was at Google IO (@googleio) last week, and I had a chance to chat with them and get my… Read More

A while back, I debated the utility of multitasking to most smartphone users, apropos of the announcement that the iPhone OS would soon support task switching. One of the primary selling points of Android phones, most notably the Droid, is its ability to multi-task. Now, we’re not talking about true multitasking like you seem from an OS, but rather,… Read More

I’m back from Google IO (@googleio), which was a great time and quite interesting to the geek in me. I wanted to share my quick impressions, before they go cold. If you follow me (@jkuramot) on Twitter, you might have noticed I tweeted my impressions of each day’s keynote. I hadn’t intended to cover the… Read More

This has been bothering me for a while. The Android logo reminds me of something, and I finally identified what . . . Terrance and Phillip from South Park. I guess Android is Canadian. Am I wrong? Find the comments.

The whole team, minus Paul, is excited for Google IO (@googleio) this week. If you’re around for the conference, or otherwise, hit us up, and let’s meet IRL. One focus for IO will be Android, specifically the 2.2 release, code-named Froyo. I’m really hoping we’ll get this update on our Droids. Two of the highly… Read More