Dr. Augustine Fou's Online Scrapbook

Wednesday, August 04, 2010

CHART OF THE DAY: RIM Needs A Home Run With Its Next Phone (RIMM, GOOG, AAPL)

Source: http://www.businessinsider.com/chart-of-the-day-smartphone-os-2010-8

Research In Motion is set to unveil a new phone and updated operating system tomorrow. It'd better be a home run. Actually, it'd better be a miracle.

According to Nielsen research, 58% of RIM's users plan on abandoning the platform. Of those, about half are eyeing the iPhone, and most of the rest are looking at Android.

RIM has seen charts like this in the past. But this time it's different. For the first time ever, more Android-based phones were sold in the last quarter than RIM phones in the U.S.

If RIM can't pull off a miracle tomorrow, it's toast. Sure, it'll still sell millions more BlackBerries for the foreseeable future. But it'll be stuck at the low-margin, low-end of the smartphone industry, where it doesn't want to be.

chart of the day, desired smartphone os, august 2010

Follow the Chart Of The Day on Twitter: @chartoftheday

Join the conversation about this story »

See Also:

Google Adds a History Link for Quick Recall on Mobile Browsers [Search]

Source: http://lifehacker.com/5604200/google-adds-mobile-search-history-link-for-easy-search-recalls

Google Adds a History Link for Quick Recall on Mobile Browsers Want to pull up that link you found at home while you're away from home? If you've enabled Google's Search History feature, you can now pull it up from the Google home page on your iPhone or Android browser.

Search History has long been a feature on Google's standard desktop version, but they've revamped it for its mobile launch. When you hit the History link at the bottom of Google's mobile page, you'll see searches you've made and links you clicked on, with tiny icons to distinguish your laptop/desktop activity from your phone searches. There's also, in Google fashion, a "star" you can add to items you'd like to mark for fast recall later.

Have you found Search History to be helpful on your desktop or mobile, or is the trade-off in information gathering a bit too heavy for your tastes?

Introducing the new Search History link on Google [Official Google Mobile Blog]

Fur.ly Shortens and Shares Multiple URLS with a Single Link [Url Shortener]

Source: http://lifehacker.com/5604219/furly-shortens-and-shares-multiple-urls-with-a-single-link

While the URL shortening market definitely seems a little saturated there's still room for innovation. Fur.ly is a URL shortening service that bundles multiple URLs together for easy sharing.

Sure you can find URL shortening for music, that includes QR code generation, offers security features, scans for malware, and even URL shorteners that host files. Fur.ly introduces a new feature, the ability to package multiple URLs together into a single URL dashboard.

Fur.ly Shortens and Shares Multiple URLS with a Single Link

The screenshot above shows what a Fur.ly URL looks like. A small—and removable—menu bar at the top of your browser pane displays how many sites are in the bundle, navigations arrows, and a drop down menu to jump to sites in the bundle without toggling through the list. From the menubar you can also views stats on the number of times the shortened URL has been viewed—we think it would be a great addition to include how many times each sub-URL in the bundle has been viewed too.

Fur.ly is a free service and requires no registration. Have a favorite URL shortening service to share? Let's hear about it in the comments.

Fur.ly [via MakeUseOf]

GoPro bringing high-def helmet cams to the masses, launching $180 HD Hero 960

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2010/08/04/gopro-bringing-high-def-helmet-cams-to-the-masses-launching-18/

If you want high-def footage from your lid you have more choices than ever, but if you're on a budget there just aren't that many. The 720p ContourHD is currently the best value at around $230, but we've received word from GoPro that the company is looking to under-cut that with the upcoming $180 HD Hero 960. We have scant few details about this new model, set for release this fall, but based on the name we're guessing it'll fall short of the current HD Hero's 1080p and offer a maximum of 960p, which should be plenty of pixels for most extremophiles. We also have to figure it will continue with its predecessors boxy stylings, but we'd certainly be happy to see a somewhat sleeker redesign.

GoPro bringing high-def helmet cams to the masses, launching $180 HD Hero 960 originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 04 Aug 2010 12:33:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink | | Email this | Comments

Engadget's Back to School guide: Digital cameras

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2010/08/04/engadgets-back-to-school-guide-digital-cameras/

Welcome to Engadget's Back to School guide! We know that this time of year can be pretty annoying and stressful for everyone, so we're here to help out with the heartbreaking process of gadget buying for the school-aged crowd. Today, we've got our optical viewfinders set firmly on digital cameras -- and you can head to the Back to School hub to see the rest of the product guides as they're added throughout the month. Be sure to keep checking back -- at the end of the month we'll be giving away a ton of the gear featured in our guides -- and hit up the hub page right here!

Time for us to open up chapter two of this year's Back to School advice compendium. Up for discussion today are digital cameras, which have been in the gym all year working on their processing prowess and return today with 720p HD video as an almost standard feature. We've got a good cross-section of young pretenders and finely aged veterans for your perusal, so why not give your mouse a little exercise as well and click past the break?

Continue reading Engadget's Back to School guide: Digital cameras

Engadget's Back to School guide: Digital cameras originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 04 Aug 2010 13:30:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink | | Email this | Comments