Zac Hall

Just ahead of CES next week, Acer has announced a handful of new hardware and devices including two desktop-sized All-in-one computers powered by Android.

The Acer DA223 HQL runs Android Jelly Bean with a 1.7 GHz quad core Snapdragon 600 processor on a 21.5″ touch screen HD display. It also runs Windows.

It features a built-in rechargeable battery so you can move it from one room to another without being plugged in.
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Google has once again refreshed its free Google Play Music playlist for its December Deals offering with new music for you to grab. This week’s artist once again includes an interesting range of performers including Nine Inch Nails, Stevie Wonder, 2Pac, and Amy Winehouse.

What’s more is the playlist leads with Taylor Swift and follows with Kanye West, the two of which famously made headlines together following the 2009 MTV Video Music Awards when Kanye unapologetically interrupted Taylor Swift’s acceptance speech.

At any rate, go ahead and grab 10 tracks while Google’s picking up the tab!
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(via <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/jbtaylor/5725362250/in/photolist-9HVYJf-dUa6Vv-9p5wzz-dktAoT-8zr6jL-8niyxG-ahWGGU-ahWGHh-ahWGHm-ahWGH3-8oqttH-dnDryR-8nfrfD-9HFdUX-c83Cah-7JfazN-e2xr5t-bURuKH-e1kDuL-9MSHjY-adVi2Z-aptqJu-ccdK8C-bmKsbu-bURuWi-ccdKcf-ccdKi5-e1faCa-8SdCBv-8MmowQ-dMm3Uk-dMrBxA-fmgSPT-dFmKF4-dFmqQ4-cCuqoG-ccdKb9-e1eY4P-8jshhM-e1eYeV-9GDiuc-9GGb4A-9MSF1E-dLUyCK-8niyGq-8nixJY-8nfrBp-g2sFSy-g2t57H-9Tufzo-9Trpo6/">Flickr</a>)

Almost two years to date since AT&T pulled its bid for T-Mobile USA, rival carrier Sprint is reportedly preparing its own offer to purchase the fourth largest carrier in the US.

That’s according to a The Wall Street Journal report which claims Sprint is currently looking into regulatory concerns that could be voiced if the third largest US carrier acquired the company which runs the fourth largest US carrier.

Sprint hasn’t yet decided whether to move ahead with a bid. Going forward despite regulators’ concerns would be highly risky. Any pursuit of a bid by Sprint could be aimed at testing antitrust officials’ reaction to a deal, and a bad reaction could put an end to the effort.

While Justice Department denied AT&T’s bid for T-Mobile in 2011 after a year long effort, it’s certainly possible a Sprint/T-Mobile merger could prove otherwise considering rival carriers AT&T and Verizon’s position in the market.

As the WSJ report notes, Verizon leads with 95 million postpaid subscribers and AT&T has 72 million subscribers, but such an acquisition would keep Sprint in a distant third place with just 53 million postpaid customers.

Both Sprint and Verizon have proved capable of adding competition in an an industry with so few key players. Sprint has long boasted its unlimited data offer for customers while T-Mobile famously reinvented the 2-year upgrade model with options soon adopted by the competition.

Unlike the proposed AT&T/T-Mobile acquisition bid two years ago, Sprint and T-Mobile operate with different technologies. The former company relies on CDMA technologies while the latter company is built on GSM.

http://vimeo.com/81527238

During its press event held in New York City today, Instagram announced a new sharing feature called Instagram Direct that will allow users to share images and videos to other users privately.

The new sharing model will require users to follow each other to send photos and messages privately to individuals or groups of up to 15 people. A pending requests inbox will catch photos and messages from users who are not mutually connected.

Instagram also noted its growth from 80 million users to 150 million users worldwide from the start of 2013 to today. Kevin Systrom, co-founder of Instagram, also boasted that over half of Instagram’s users use the service daily…

Instagram on its new Direct feature:

From how you capture photos and videos to the way you start conversations through likes and comments, we built Instagram Direct to feel natural to the Instagram experience you already know. When you open Instagram, you’ll now see a new icon in the top right corner of your home feed. Tap it to open your inbox where you’ll see photos and videos that people have sent to you. To send a photo or video to specific people, tap the camera button to enter the same simple photo or video capture and editing screens. At the top of the share screen, you’ll see the option to share with your followers (“Followers”) or to send to specific people (“Direct”). To send using Direct, tap the names of the people you want to send your photo or video to, write your caption, tap “send” and you’re done.

After sending, you’ll be able to find out who’s seen your photo or video, see who’s liked it and watch your recipients commenting in real time as the conversation unfolds.

Instagram Direct will be available in Instagram 5.0 for Android on the Play Store today.

In a refreshing departure from its iconic flick-and-throw style animated gameplay, Rovio is out with a brand new Mario Kart-like game depicting the ongoing battle between the winged warriors and pesky pigs with Angry Birds GO!

Angry Birds GO! delivers ‘breakneck speed’ downhill racing on Piggy Island in the first three-dimensional version of the series … 
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Twitter for Android received a major update today bringing yet another user interface update and a handful of feature additions.

Namely, users can now share images over Direct Messages, which is now featured prominently on the bottom tab bar. Previously, users had to rely on third party services for sharing links to images in DMs, but now with native image support images appear inline.

Photo sharing over Direct Message appears to only be supported in the official Twitter apps (iPhone, iPad, Android) and lacks an API, so photos shared over DM currently cannot be composed by third party Twitter clients. The update contains a handful of other features as well (full changelog below):

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(via <a href="http://www.flickr.com/apollo_zac" target="_blank">Flickr</a>)

Google announced today a major round of app additions for its media streaming Chromecast HDMI stick including Plex, Vevo, Songza, and more.

Chromecast, which retails for $35 (currently $32.88 on Amazon Prime), can now play local files synced with your Plex media library from iOS, Android, or Chrome. Plex support is highly requested and offers a major advantage for content consumers looking to play content from a device to an HDTV.

Today’s update also brings support for the music video streaming service Vevo as well as the music discovery radio Songza.
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Following a year of mixed messaging and confusion regarding government access to personal data and how companies are handling the issue, Google is putting it’s support behind a petition demanding the United States government require a warrant before accessing email of private citizens.

[tweet https://twitter.com/ericschmidt/status/408987436945907712]

Google executive chairman Eric Schmidt tweeted a link to the company’s post on Google+:

Doesn’t the stuff you keep online deserve the same protection as the stuff you keep offline? Under a law called ECPA, government agencies in the U.S. can see what you’ve written and stored online without a warrant. Sign this petition to the White House and tell the government to get a warrant!

The petition originated on November 12, 2013, and requires just over 42,000 signatures by December 12, 2013, to mean the threshold for a response from the White House. At the time of this writing, just over 57,000 signatures have been collected on the online petition.

The full petition reads as follows:
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Eric Schmidt has seen the future and he doesn’t like it. Private citizens remotely piloting drones to spy on one another? Not in his backyard!

That’s the message he offered to The Guardian when discussing the future of certain technologies:

“You’re having a dispute with your neighbour,” he hypothesised. “How would you feel if your neighbour went over and bought a commercial observation drone that they can launch from their back yard. It just flies over your house all day. How would you feel about it?”

Such a timely point in history to mention privacy, right? And from the executive chairman of Google of all places? The elephant in the room here, of course, is Google Glass, you know, the video camera-equipped heads-up display you wear on your face? Like a drone?
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Google is rolling out support to its take out service for exporting email and appointment data from its Gmail and Google Calendar services, the company announced today.

While Google often supports data exporting when sunsetting a service, the company says in this instance it’s simply allowing users the ability to better archive personal data and switch to other services with less friction.
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Moto X with wood back case via phonesreview.com

If you had high hopes of matching the back of your smartphone with the oak tree table on which you dine in time for Thanksgiving, then Motorola might have just ruined your holidays.

Well, not so fast, the company is selling Moto G handsets much sooner than previously announced (holiday money grab much?), but Motorola won’t be supporting those wood backplates for the Moto handsets for a few more weeks, according to a Reuters reporter.

Did Motorola just give its customers the shaft or save countless Moto rockers from certain buyers’ remorse? You be the judge.
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[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M9jA2km9TKM]

Google announced today Chromecast support for the HBO GO app for Android.

This means HBO GO subscribers can now push content from their Android Devices to their Chromecast-connected HDTVs. HBO GO casting is also available from the website from Chrome browser.
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In our perpetually continuing series fondly known as Talking Schmidt, we catch up with the Google Chairman and mouthpiece in mid-speech in Washington courtesy of Bloomberg:

Schmidt described the coming of a “network age” in which Internet users communicate and organize socially through private channels shielded by encryption, which scrambles data with a mathematical formula that can be decoded only with a special digital key.

“We can end government censorship in a decade,” Schmidt said during a speech in Washington. “The solution to government surveillance is to encrypt everything.”

ENCRYPT. EVERYTHING. REALLY?!

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Samsung is addressing one of the biggest issues with its Galaxy Gear smart watch it introduced earlier this year: device compatibility. Several Samsung devices including its Galaxy S3, S4, Note 2, and Mega smartphones will receive compatibility via a software update in Android 4.3.

Samsung’s Galaxy Gear smart watch debuted alongside Samsung’s Galaxy Note 3 smartphone and Galaxy Note 10.1tablet with support limited to those devices. Initial reviews overwhelmingly disapproved of Samsung’s smart watch offering, but widening device compatibility is surely a step in the right direction. (Full press release below)

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Following leaked images allegedly showing off Android 4.4 and an eight-minute video hands-on with the Nexus 5 and the next version of Android, KitKat has done its part in hyping the chocolate-branded version of Android with a few notable tweets.

The candy bar maker dropped a couple of cryptic tweets yesterday and today, which Pocket-lint believes it has decrypted, hinting at Android 4.4 possibly launching on October 28th.

KitKat tweeted an image early Tuesday morning of an Android made out of the chocolate candy bar with a caption containing a magnifying glass (for Google Search or a sign that it’s meant to be a clue?), and the tweet itself read ‘Everybody dance now!’ This references the song “Gonna Make You Sweat (Everybody Dance Now)” by C+C Music Factory, but their original name was The 28th Street Crew.

The original tweet alone would be quite a stretch for assuming Android 4.4 would debut on October 28th, but roughly 24 hours later KitKat tweeted, “Sometimes you have to look for the signs…”, which clearly explains the nature of the tweets. This time it included KitKat bars arranged to say “THIS IS IT”, the Michael Jackson concert-film released on October 28th as Pocket-lint notes.

Could we see more clues ahead of the anticipated launch of Android 4.4? We’ll keep you posted. In the meantime, check out the tweets for yourself below the fold, and let us know what you think:

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We first brought you the story of a 30-year-old man finding his lost mother and family using Google Earth earlier this year, and Google has posted an emotional video on YouTube of Saroo Brierley telling his story of technology leading to his reunion.

Brierly was disconnected from his family at the age of five in a turn of tragedy, and decades later saw Google Earth as an avenue to search the streets he recollected in fragments for answers of his origin. Check out the compelling video below:
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Amazon has long been said to be working on a smartphone carrying its brand, and it looks like it HTC could be its hardware partner.

That’s according to a report from the Financial Times, which cites people familiar with the project in saying that three different smartphones are currently in development with one being “at an advanced stage of development.”

“We have been very focused on building our own brand, but we have also been very open to co-branding and collaborating with carriers and other technology brands,” HTC chief of marketing Ben Ho told the Financial Times, but declined to comment on any specific relationship with Amazon.

Shipping a phone with both the HTC and Amazon logos would mean more than just branding for the phone, as Amazon would be able to take over much of the Android operating system experience as it has done with the Kindle Fire tablets. HTC partnered with Facebook earlier this year for the not-so-popular-now HTC First featuring Facebook Home, but borrowing software features from the Kindle Fire like Mayday, an Amazon support service for users, could prove valuable to both HTC and Amazon and be very appealing to new users in a saturated smartphone market.
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(via <a href="Wired.com" target="_blank">Wired.com</a>)

Samsung’s chief product officer for its mobile devision, Kevin Packingham, has parted ways with the company, The New York Times reports.

Packingham, a former Sprint Nextel vendor, was responsible for leading the company’s mobile team during the notably successful launches of the Samsung Galaxy S III and Galaxy S 4 Android phones on all the major US carriers. Packingham cited Samsung’s aggressive advertising campaign for the Galaxy smartphones as a key to making their respective launches successful for both Samsung and the carrier stores.

Samsung Mobile confirmed the departure to NYT:

“Kevin Packingham has departed Samsung Mobile,” said Ashley Wimberly, a Samsung Mobile spokeswoman, in a statement. “We thank Kevin for his contributions and wish him well in his future endeavors.”

Details surrounding Packingham’s departure are vague at this point, and a successor to the two-year Samsung Mobile chief has yet to be announced.
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