tbs eFM Weekend Edition: IT News 10/02 (just filling in for 2 weeks before heading to the States for 2 weeks)
- original script - (some of the contents were skipped due to 8 minute broadcast window)
Walter Now moving on to more in-depth discussion on technology, there was a big announcement in the tech world, last week, an American Online retailer came out and made a huge announcement, something about a new tablet right?
Jason last wed, amazon.com unveiled next generation family of kindle products. for those that aren't familiar, kindle was an e-book reader that used special type of display called e-ink, which is way easier on the eyes than your typical lcd screen.
I say was.. because the kindle line, now has a full blown 7 inch “non-tablet” kindle fire (Amazon.com is calling it a kindle device and not a tablet.) that runs on a modified version of android 2.3 froyo.. custom made to suit the end to end experience amazon .com wants to create for their consumers.
walter: (your comment on the tablet) what is all the fuss about?
jason:
- tablets are a multimedia consumption devices that offer bigger screens than your smartphones but are smaller than laptops or netbooks.
- As most of us know, Apple reinvented the category, and dominates the landscape.
- It is a lot easier to take with you than lugging around a notebook, and can still do some productivity work. (wrote this part on my iPad, which I hated doing btw.. need me a mac book air to replace my iPad) - better for videos imo..
- other manufacturers have tried their hand with an android os based device, but aren’t exactly doing well...
- Many in tech circles are hoping the new device will be the iPad killer, even if they aren't even in the same product category.
Walter: could you give us the brief rundown on specs?
brief specs,
- 7 inch ips screen with 1024 x 600.
- dual core processor, but only 8 gigs of storage and around 7.5 hours of battery life.
- its basically a stripped down playbook by RIM.
- And by stripped down, I mean it has no hdmi out, no camera, and no sd card slot,
- so the device will lack expandability, but it is a cloud based device so it will serve its purpose. at least according to amazon.
walter: it is not a typical tablet, and they are trying to go as wireless as possible right?
Jason
- The only real use for the usb cable is for charging the device. (well that and rooting according to some articles I read)
- Utilize Amazon’s whisper net to sync data from the cloud. Lot more convenient than iTunes, is the plan :D
Walter: no wires is great! And they also announced an interesting approach to browsing by utilizing the cloud?
jason
- Good portion of the keynote was dedicated to explaining the technology behind improving the web browsing experience on their tablet device.
- the device will be bundled with their proprietary browser called Silk.
o it addresses one of my pet peeves found in today’s tablets. sloooooooow browsing.
- i really dislike browsing on my apple tablet, because safari is horrid and slow.
- amazon hopes to alleviate the speed issue by caching optimized versions of accessed pages on their cloud storage, to offer less strain on the tablet end, (client).
- Silk is designed to split the processing overhead between the Kindle fire and Amazon EC2 (Elastic Compute Cloud) where the EC2 does the heavy lifting of optimizing web content for the tablet, and tablet just renders it.
Walter. But if the web is cached, then won't there be privacy concerns?
Jason.
- most definitely! even https connection will be cached in theory, which is a definite nono.
- so Amazon.com is including an option to disable the feature if privacy is an issue for the end user.
- it will be interesting to see how it is implemented.
[skip if no time] Walter: and the announcement sent shockwaves through the industry especially in the tough to survive market, with the recent 49day-long life of HP Touchpad.
[jason.
interesting how much impact that single event may have had on the tablet pricing. and it is evident in the pricing trends. Some call it the fallout from the recent announcement.
- Rim recently announced temporary $200 price cut for the playbook, until Oct 8th resulting in 299 price for its 16 gig version.
- And just yesterday, us retailer best buy announced permanent $200 price cut for the HTC flyer.
Amazon.com is actually losing $50 per tablet sold, but much like videogame console subsidy models, they are betting on making it back through content sales. and they will.]
Walter: so what do you think? an iPad killer?
Jason
- nope, but an interesting competitor for a different segment.
- it will be a great tablet device that would take tablet computing mainstream!
- and some consumers may realize that a $200 multimedia device maybe good enough, esp in today’s economy.
- amazon, unlike other tablet makers already have a great eco system. and that will give them an enormous edge for their entry into the tablet market.
- I think it’ll be a success, and at least for this generation, both devices won’t really infringe on the other.
o But it will be interesting to see what direction the kindle fire will take in its evolution.
- However, that does not mean it won’t kill off other android based tablets by other manufacturers.
- HP Touchpad killed the price point for android tablets; Kindle Fire will further erode it by leveraging their end to end experience. (not to mention the $199 price tag) [If you can’t stand that heat, get out of the kitchen!]
[Just prior to the announcement, there was a rumor that the fire is a stripped down playbook since amazon had to launch before the crucial holiday season. And there just maybe a beefier tablet to be announced after the first quarter, so we will see.]
Samsung sells 10 million Galaxy SII phones in 5 short months!
Samsung reports that Galaxy S II family of phones is the fastest selling phone manufactured by the company so far.
They have sold over 10 million units worldwide since introduction in late April. The math equals to selling more than 60,000 units a day or about 1 unit sold per second.
In addition, Samsung currently holds the biggest market share of Smartphone markets in 10 major European nations, including France, Germany and Russia.
SKT announced LTE plans 9/28
The LTE (Long Term Evolution) or 4G cellular phone network era has opened in Korea.
SK Telecom announced the pricing plans for their LTE services on Wednesday September 28th.
Unlimited data usage from the days of 3G are gone, and have been replaced by number of tiered plans that range from 34,000 won which allows some voice minutes and up to 350 MB of data to 100,000 won for up to 10 Gigabytes of bandwidth.
LTE promises around 5 times the download speed of the 3G network. Currently the SKT LTE network is limited to Seoul Metropolitan area, but the company will continue to expand the network.
Microsoft set to make $444 Million from Android related loyalities
On September 28th, Microsoft signed a definitive agreement with Samsung Electronics to cross-license the patent portfolios of both companies.
Under the agreement, Microsoft will receive royalties for Samsung’s mobile phones and tablets running the Android mobile platform.
Goldman Sachs estimates that Microsoft will earn 444 million dollars from loyalties paid by manufacturers of Android based phones in 2012.
