Friday, February 21, 2014

Android users will get to install Jolla's rival Sailfish OS, bit by bit

Jolla’s Sailfish OS isn’t Android – not even an Amazon-style fork – but it can run Android apps and manufacturers can put it on the same hardware they use for Android devices. So after a pretty small-scale start, what would be the smart way for the plucky Finnish mobile upstart to make sure as many people as possible play with its software?

Yup. On Friday, Jolla announced the first complete version of Sailfish OS and said users themselves would later this year be able to install it on many Android devices – according to the post-Nokia outfit, this will include “major versions of popular Samsung Galaxy, Google Nexus, and Sony Xperia .” In the meantime, Jolla will soon put a Sailfish launcher into “common Android marketplaces”, so people can get their heads around the operating system’s gesture-based user interface.

All this will take place during the first half of this year, Jolla said, noting that the full Sailfish OS should be “commercially ready for global distribution” after the beginning of March, when Sailfish OS receives its fourth significant update.

The company also revealed partnerships with other big hitters from Finland: Rovio, for an Angry Birds-themed “The Other Half” smart cover, and security firm F-Secure, for free cloud storage. Jolla will also work with Finnish IT consultancy Tieto to offer integration services to manufacturers that want to make Sailfish OS phones.

According to Jolla COO and co-founder Marc Dillon:

“We’ve been working hard together with our user community to make the user experience of the Jolla smartphone and Sailfish OS effortless and distinct. We believe that Jolla now offers a truly viable option for all smartphone users. Naturally we are not stopping here, as we continue to provide monthly software updates to Jolla devices and Sailfish OS.”


Sailfish OS users will be able to install “their preferred Android app store”, Dillon added – I’m guessing the official Google Play Store isn’t an option, but Jolla has previously announced a partnership with Yandex to see the Russian web giant’s Android app store preinstalled on Jolla devices. Sailfish OS is open source, and the community has already made native apps for Facebook, Twitter, WhatsApp and Foursquare.

How likely is it that Android users will go Sailfish? Jolla is hopeful: chairman Antti Saarnio said in Friday’s statement that there are about a billion Android users out there. “Last year in China alone, about 100 million devices were re-flashed after the purchase with a new operating system. This approach allows Sailfish OS to scale into volume fast without limitations,” he noted.

“Just in a few months [since launch, presumably] we have shown how fast an open operating system can develop compared to closed ecosystems,” Saarnio continued. “It’s time for free choice instead of closed walled gardens.”

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Wednesday, February 19, 2014

Microsoft Officially Rebrands SkyDrive To OneDrive

SkyDrive is dead, long live OneDrive. In January, Microsoft announced that it would rebrand its storage service to OneDrive following a trademark dispute with British pay-TV provider BSkyB. Starting today, the website, the mobile apps and the desktop apps all share the same OneDrive name.

That’s not all. Microsoft is also launching today a new referral program. It is very reminiscent of Dropbox’s referral system. If a friend signs up using your link, you get 500MB of free storage, up to a maximum of 10 friends or 5GB. Similarly, if you enable automatic photo upload on your Windows, iOS or Android phone, you can get up to 3GB of free storage.

Overall, OneDrive users can get up to 8GB of additional storage. Before today, the Android app didn’t have the photo backup feature. But today’s update brought this feature to Android phones as well.

Consumer cloud storage is becoming cheaper as many tech giants now have their own services. Google has Google Drive, Apple has iCloud, Microsoft has OneDrive, etc. They will now have to differentiate from each other with better apps, better features and probably marketing.

Funnily, the two platforms that didn’t receive an update today were Microsoft’s two core products — Office 2013 and Windows 8.1. You will still see the old SkyDrive name, but everything will still work.

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Report: Samsung Galaxy Gear 2 to run on Tizen

The Samsung Galaxy Gear 2 will run on Samsung’s homegrown Tizen OS instead of Google’s Android, according to USA Today. The report also said that Samsung is planning to introduce the watch, as well as the new Tizen operating system, at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona next week.

This would be a pretty radical shift for Samsung, which already brought some well-known third-party app developers to the table for the original Galaxy Gear including Evernote and Snapchat. A switch to Tizen would mean that the company has to start all over again, and raises some questions about compatibility. Would a Tizen-based smartwatch only work with Tizen phones, for example? That could be a problem, since there aren’t any available right now.

On the other hand, this could mean that the new Galaxy Gear will function as a standalone device, like the Pebble smartwatch; the watch might be able to perform its standard functions and run preloaded apps without a connection.

Samsung is holding a press conference at MWC next week where it is expected to introduce the Galaxy S5. We’ll see if the Galaxy Gear 2 makes an appearance as well.

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The First Supersonic Private Jet Has Huge Screens Instead of Windows

Windows are kind of a drag for airplanes—literally. They add extra weight, weaken the body, and generally slow the aircraft down. That's why the new Spike S-512 Supersonic Jet won't have any. Instead, passengers get to enjoy their sky-high surroundings on real-time, panoramic video screens.

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Don't blink or you'll miss this 'Guardians of the Galaxy' teaser

It used to be that a movie was teased with a trailer, and then debuted. Disney seems to be starting a trend in which even the trailers themselves get their own trailers.

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Samsung promises KitKat for 14 devices, including Galaxy S III and Note II

Samsung has mostly kept quiet about its KitKat update plans since the software came out in late October, but today the company's American arm announced a list of devices that will be getting an update. Android 4.4 updates will be provided to "select carrier variants" of the Galaxy Note 3, Galaxy Note II, Galaxy S 4, Galaxy S 4 Mini, Galaxy S 4 Active, Galaxy S 4 Zoom, Galaxy S III, Galaxy S III mini, Galaxy Mega, Galaxy Light, Galaxy Note 8.0, Galaxy Tab 3, Galaxy Note 10.1, and the Galaxy Note 10.1 2014 Edition.

The list of devices receiving the update says two things about Samsung: first, it's not too bad about providing continued support compared to other Android OEMs, at least for its most popular handsets. A two-year support window seems to be a reasonable expectation, if you buy new devices around the time they're released. Second, it offers a truly dizzying array of phones and tablets that would confuse even the most informed consumer (I had to Google the Galaxy Light before I even knew what it was). Other handset makers, like HTC, whom we'll pick on only because it provided us a recent and prominent example, seem to have trouble keeping even their flagship phones updated for that long. Even though we don't have a release window for any of Samsung's updates yet, this is good news for most of its customers.

Aside from the under-the-hood upgrades included with KitKat, updated devices will receive a handful of Samsung-specific features, including a new Location Menu, an "Enhanced Messaging" function that will allow you to choose between Samsung's Messages app or Google Hangouts for texting and will support a wider number of emojis, and upgraded Google (GMS) apps. Samsung's Android 4.3 update, which has already rolled out to a fair number of the listed devices, included a handful of other features, including support for the Galaxy Gear smartwatch.

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