• Google Android Ousts Nokia Symbian From Smartphones Top Spot

    // Gradly // Android, blog, google, Nokia, Symbian No Responses

    Reuters reports that for the first time in over ten years, Nokia’s Symbian is no longer the world’s number one smartphone platform. The new king? Google’s Android.

    In the fourth quarter, phone makers sold 32.9 million Android-equipped phones globally, roughly seven times more than the year-earlier quarter, compared with Symbian’s sales of 31 million, according to Research firm Canalys.

    Of course it should probably come as no great surprise that a free, multi-manufacturer operating system is shipping more units than one running on just the single company’s hardware. That said though, this is without doubt the start of a new era and one that could possibly spell the end of Nokia as we know it.

    With hit hardware like the Samsung Galaxy S line along with a rash of hardware coming in 2011, Android shows no sign of slowing down. With each new OS release comes new features, more bells and whistles and a bit more spit and polish. Currently Google claims over 300,000 devices are being activated each and every day, so it’s safe to say sales aren’t going to slow soon. Now it’s down to the hardware manufacturers to produce the hardware to go along with the OS.

    Meanwhile the folks over at Nokia haven’t had it quite so good. In just over 2 years since Google launched Android, Nokia has seen its market share slump from almost 50% to less than 31%.

    With new Chief Executive Stephen Elop at the helm, the former Swedish giants will be hoping to start moving in the right direction sooner rather than later. Could that include the use of Android on its handsets? That’s the rumor going around the tech blogs over the last few weeks and few could argue against it. Nokia needs a more modern OS for its class-filled hardware and Google’s offering is getting better each release.

    A match made in heaven perhaps?

    [via: redmondpie]

  • Watch volunteers translate Egyptian phone messages in real-time

    // Gradly // blog, google, News, Rants & Raves, Twitter 1 Response

    Don’t believe in the power of crowdsourcing yet? Well, if initiatives such as Wikipedia and Ushahidi haven’t convinced you, the video below should pretty much negate anyone’s doubts about just how monumental a force crowdsourcing has become.

    Earlier today, in response to the continued blackout of the Internet in Egypt, Google announced that it had set up phone numbers in Egypt for protesters to call into, that would then automatically be turned into voicemail messages, that would then be tweeted out on the account @Speak2Tweet.

    As if that wasn’t cool enough, a number of volunteers outside of Egypt (you know, where the Internet still works) decided to collaborate online to get those voicemails – which are mainly in Arabic – translated into English and then we’re guessing that these will then tweeted out yet again (or perhaps they plan to put them all up on some kind of website?).

    We captured a Google Docs spreadsheet just now of volunteers translating the phone messages left by Egyptian protesters at lightning speed. The video below is in real-time – we did nothing to speed it up. Either watch it and be in awe, or go right to the spreadsheet and watch it continue to update (or better yet, if you can translate Arabic to English, lend a hand!):

    Update: We originally assumed that these translations would be retweeted out somehow, but we have yet to see evidence / the tweets yet. We’ve contacted Google (which most likely do not actually have any official connection to these volunteers) to see if it is aware of any efforts to get these translations tweeted out again, but regardless, the effort and the spirit of these volunteers speaks for itself. We’ll update as soon as we find out more information.

    [via: thenextweb]

  • Google ‘Instant Previews’ come to iOS Safari

    // Gradly // Apple, blog, google, iPhone, News No Responses

    Google has finally brought their helpful ‘Instant Previews’ feature from the desktop browser, down to the mobile experience. ‘Instant Previews’ lets you tap the accompanying magnifying for a pop-up preview of the website. This saves you time, as now you can get a quick glance at the site without actually having to load up the page. The neat part about Google’s implementation in iOS Safari is that you can flick through the previews of a particular search query, like you flick through iOS’s native Safari tabs function.

    At this time it does not look like the new Google ‘Instant Previews’ feature for iOS has hit all user devices, as the feature is yet to appear on our iPhone 4 or iPad. Google has yet to announce the ‘Instant Previews’ feature for mobile, so this could be an early and/or limited rollout. Google has been rolling out new features for the Google mobile website, with the most recent additions being ‘Google Instant’ and enhanced Google Docs editing on the iPad Safari browser.

  • Google Voice Number-Porting is Now Live

    // Gradly // blog, google, News, Rants & Raves 1 Response

    Google Voice users are now free to turn their current cellphone number into their main Google Voice number, the company announced Tuesday, bringing the much-requested feature to all users after a short, but very public, testing period.

    For many porting will bring joy. For others, expect hours of pain — on hold with your mobile carrier.

    Porting, which costs $20, allows users to turn their mobile number into a Google Voice number, obviating the need to try to spread a new number to your contacts.

    For those not clear on how Google Voice works, the company issues you a new phone number — your Google Voice number. It becomes your master number and when someone calls it, it rings some or all of your other phones and your Gmail/Google Talk account.

    This can include your mobile phone, your home phone, your work phone and your computer, if you have Gmail open. Additionally, Google lets you screen callers and set rules per caller — even blocking and diverting individual numbers to voicemail, which no wireless carrier does.

    Google Voice also transcribes your voicemail and sends your the transcript to your e-mail address. You can make and receive calls from your GV number from your computer, without affecting your mobile-phone minutes. From your computer, domestic calls are free, and internationals are cheap.

    Which all sounds great. And for new users, being able to port your existing mobile-phone number makes switching to Google Voice very easy, since all the people that know your cell number won’t even notice a change. Current users have had to get a new number and then publicize it, and spend months trying to wean people off the old number.