Windows

Skatter Tech’s Sahas Katta wrote a blog post yesterday about his Windows Phone challenge experience and explained how he beat the contest using a Galaxy Nexus, but Microsoft employees withheld his prize “just because.”

Katta claimed he beat a “Get Smoked” Windows Phone challenge at the Santa Clara Microsoft Store yesterday. The assigned quest was to “bring up the weather of two different cities” faster than a competing Windows Phone user. Katta cold booted his smartphone as instructed, accessed his unlocked screen, and quickly viewed two separate weather widgets for San Jose and Berkeley that were luckily running on the device’s home screen.

Despite executing the task first, Katta was immediately told the Windows Phone “smoked” him:

I excitedly thought I won out of pure luck. However, I was quickly told that I lost. I asked for a reason and was told Windows Phone won because “it displays the weather right there.” That was rather unclear. I showed her my device which also was showing off the same information with two side-by-side weather widgets on the center home screen. After pressing for a better reason, I was told that Windows Phone won “just because.”

After trying to push for a real answer since I clearly won the contest by their rules, another Microsoft Store employee (possibly a manager) came by after noticing me asking more questions. Thinking on his feet, he quickly gave a ridiculous out-of-thin-air reason that I need to display the weather of different cities in different states and that “my phone could not do that”.

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Google can now check the University of Pennsylvania off its ever-growing list of ivy leaguers wielding Google Apps for Education, because the school just announced a recent move from Microsoft’s Windows Live Hotmail to Gmail.

The Philadelphia-based private university ranks No. 5 in National Universities, according to U.S. News and World Report, and it joins over 60 other leading institutions from the nation’s top 100 to use Google Apps. Harvard College, Yale, and Brown University are a few of the more prominent schools to top Google’s list.

Penn changed services after studying student email trends:

“We just saw more than 50 percent of students forward emails from their Hotmail to Gmail accounts and thought it would be more convenient this way,” said Director of Social Sciences Computing and Student Technology Chris Mustazza to The Daily Pennsylvanian.

More information is available below.

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Microsoft requested European Union antitrust regulators to probe Motorola Mobility on claims that the United States phone manufacturer is blocking sales of Windows and Xbox products.

“Earlier today, Microsoft filed a formal competition law complaint with the European Commission (EC) against Motorola Mobility and Google,” wrote Microsoft’s Vice President and Deputy General Counsel David Heiner in a blog post this morning. “We have taken this step because Motorola is attempting to block sales of Windows PCs, our Xbox game console and other products.”

Microsoft’s post, “Google: Please Don’t Kill Video on the Web,” lambasted Motorola Mobility for not making industry standard patents available on reasonable and fair terms, and for using those patents to block competitors from shipping products.

The industry apparently agreed many years ago to define common technical standards for everyone to use and build compatible Wi-Fi and video products. However, Heiner contended, Motorola is backtracking on its word and attempting to use standard patents for “killing video on the Web.”

More information is available below.

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Google rolled out a nice little update for Google Cloud Print support today. While mentioning a number of new features added to the service such as the ability to control printer access, save to Google Docs, and a new tablet-friendly UI for the management page, they also announced site owners can now add the print button element for smartphones and tablets to their sites.

Other new additions to Google Cloud Print– those using the latest release of Chrome on Mac, Windows, or Linux can print any webpage, and Chromebook users will now have access to print preview. Google also notes they look forward to rolling out the service across products and platforms.

These features continue the rollout of GCP, which has connected more than 6 million printers since launch, and added a number of new supported products from companies like HP, Epson, and Kodak. You can get a full list of supported products here, and check out Chrome extensions and apps that currently have access to the service.

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In addition to an updated iPad app, VMware has also announced today that the Android version of their mobile View client is officially available for public consumption. Until now, the Android client had only been available as a tech preview.

“Whether you are using a Samsung Galaxy Tab 8.9 or 10.1, an LG/T-mobile G-Slate, a Motorola Xoom or any of the other newly available Honeycomb-based Android tablets or the Cisco Cius, you can get the most of your View desktop on the Android tablet you choose.”

Available as a free download in the Android Market, the VMware View for Android client allows you to access a Windows-based virtual machine running in the VMware View 4.6 (or later) desktop software over WiFi or 3G.

Much of the look and feel of the Android client mirrors the recently updated iPad version. The client supports multitasking, (allowing you to switch to another Android app without losing your current session), and the majority of other features including quick connect VM list, an overall similar UI, embedded RSA soft tokens, and support for the PCoIP display protocol.

The app currently includes support for German, French, Japanese, Korean, and Simplified Chinese languages, as well as local input mode as explained below:

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Ever wished you could run your favorite iOS app on your Mac? What about your Windows machine or Android device? If creators of new Kickstarter project iEmu reach their funding goals, it may be possible sooner than you think.

iEmu is a new project based on the open-source QEMU emulator, currently accepting donations through Kickstarter, that aims to emulate the S5L8930 chipset used in iPhone 4 and first-gen iPads. It will support a number of platforms including “Linux, Windows, Mac, mobile platforms such as Android, and even on iOS itself”.

The goals of iEmu? Well the end goal is an emulator capable of running “most iPad/iPhone apps” that even supports  peripherals like the compass, accelerometer, and GPS. It would also “be extended with plugins for custom iOS exploration” and able to be reflashed in iTunes.

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If you are a mainstream Chrome user like I imagine most of you are, the first stable version of Chrome 13 is now available for auto upgrade.  Why upgrade?

Google Instant Pages prefetches links so that page load times increse dramatically.  Linux and Windows users will now also get a print preview (Linux before Mac?! oh ChromeOS :P)

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Jn93FDx9oI]

To manually upgrade, go to about Chrome and hit the upgrade button (below):
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Research firm Strategy Analytics discovers that shipments of Android-driven tablets are finally beginning to make a meaningful impact on the overall tablet market. Yes, Android slates are making their presence known, even though iPad is still king of the hill. According to the research firm’s survey, June quarter tablet shipments topped 15.1 million units, a material increase over the 3.5 million units from the year-ago period. Apple seized the #1 slot with 9.25 million iPads the company reported for the June quarter, representing a 61.3 percent share of the tablet market overall.

At the same time, Android tablets have gone from 2.9 percent market share in June 2010 to 30.1 percent in June 2011, a surprising 27.2 percentage points increase based on sales of 4.55 million units. In the year-ago quarter Apple enjoyed a 94 percent share, so iPad’s 33 percentage points drop is substantial no matter how you look at it. GSM Arena observes that “in terms of market share, the iOS lead in the past quarter is nearly three times smaller than it was in the same period of last year”.

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