Category Archives: Google Mobile

Enkin: Revolutionary GPS Application for Android

If you take two Computational Visualistics students, give them Google Android’s SDK and motivate them with a $275.000 award , you’ll get Enkin, a revolutionary handheld navigation concept.

Here is how Enkin’s creators present it:

“Enkin” introduces a new handheld navigation concept. It displays location-based content in a unique way that bridges the gap between reality and classic map-like representations. It combines GPS, orientation sensors, 3D graphics, live video, several web services and a novel user interface into an intuitive and light navigation system for mobile devices.

What makes Enkin so unique is that it has as “live mode”, meaning that for example when pointing your phone camera towards a building that is in fact an hospital, the interface will indicate so.

The user interface has three different modes:

– Map mode: This is a two-dimensional mode and similar to
classical maps applications. It provides a quick overview of
all active location-based content and lets you easily manage
your data.

– Landscape mode: This mode resembles loosely Google
Earth’s 3D view. It enables your content’s third dimension
by embedding it into a three-dimensional landscape.

– Live mode: This acts as the bridge to reality. Now your content
is displayed extending real physical objects instead of
computer graphics by using the device’s built-in camera.

Watch their video here to see it in action.

Phones equipped with Android haven’t hit the market yet, so when this happens, Enkin will be more impressive than when used from an emulator.

Android proves that it will truly revolutionize the way we search things from our cell phones, especially local information.

Visit Enkin.net for more information. Hat tip to Wireless Watch Japan for the info.

Opera Mini Chooses Google as its Default Search Engine (Again…)

Opera Mini announced today that Google will now be its default mobile search engine. A Google search box will be present on top of Opera Mini Start Page. This deal will definitely help Google increase its mobile search market share. Opera said that most of its traffic is generated from the search function on its browser:

Every month, Opera Mini users browse more than 1.7 billion pages, with much of that traffic generated through the search function in the browser.

It’s funny to note that Google used to be Opera Mini’s default search engine, but was replaced by Yahoo! in January 2007.

Nokia to add Google Mobile on its handsets

Nokia has its own mobile search application, embedded in some of its cell phone models. The application currently provides shortcuts to Yahoo! OneSearch, Microsoft Live Search Mobile, Baidu and Yandex.

Today, Nokia announced that it will add Google to the list of search engines that consumers can access from its phones.

Nokia explained that it prefers to gives choices to their customers, rather than just providing one search engine.

“Providing choices for our consumers is an important driver in Nokia’s Internet service strategy,” Ilkka Raiskinen, Nokia’s vice-president of software and services, said in a statement issued at the Mobile World Congress wireless fair in Barcelona.

Google Mobile Search Update : Mobile Web Index Rescucitated

In march 2007, Google launched a new version of its mobile search engine, which quite looked like Yahoo OneSearch. The new version consisted of a page with just one search box, after entering a query, Google would automatically categorize search results in Web results, Local results, Images and News.

The only problem with this new version was that Google didn’t make a difference between full web pages and mobile pages. Pages from the Web and Mobile Web indices were mixed together, users couldn’t choose what kind of pages they wanted to have. For example, before that, if you couldn’t find pages that would display properly in the full Web index, you could use the Mobile Web index and find only pages adapted to your mobile.

At the time, I explained all the issues of the new Google Mobile in that post. Several people involved in mobile Web complained about the change. I even sent several emails to some people at Google in order to ask them to bring the Mobile Web index back. Well, it looks like Google heard us. The Mobile Web Index is back on Google Mobile Search engine.
If  you go to Google Mobile and search for something, you’ll now have 5 kinds of results: Web, Images, Local, Business, News, and Mobile Web.

I’m glad Google decided to rescucitate the Mobile Web, because even if transcoded pages are great when browsing with a handheld device, they cannot replace sites created specifically for the small screen.

Google Partners with NTT DoCoMo on Mobile Search

NTT DoCoMo, Japan’s biggest mobile carrier has announced that it has partnered with Google to provide their services on their Internet portal.

This is the second deal that Google signs with a Japanese carrier, the first one was with KDDI, Japan’s No. 2 mobile phone company , a couple of months ago.

DoCoMo and KDDI together control over 80 percent of Japan’s mobile market, so these deals will allow Google to gain lots of mobile search users.

Yahoo! is still Japan’s number 1 search engine, so Google can reverse the situation on the mobile search market.

KDDI and DoCoMo are both part of the Open Handset Alliance, the group behind Android, so that explains why they chose Google as their mobile search provider. The two companies will soon launch handsets running on this new mobile OS.

Source : Reuters.

Google Sees Surge Of Traffic From iPhones

According to the NYT, traffic to Google from iPhones surged during Christmas, and has even surpassed traffic from any other type of mobile device. People love the web experience provided by the iPhone so much that they surf more than traditional mobile phone’s owners, for whom it’s still not that easy to go online.

“The data is striking because the iPhone, an Apple product, accounts for just 2 percent of smartphones worldwide, according to IDC, a market research firm. Phones powered by Symbian make up 63 percent of the worldwide smartphone market, while those powered by Microsoft’s Windows Mobile have 11 percent and those running the BlackBerry system have 10 percent.”

Other handset manufacturers should replicate this kind of experience to increase the number of people using the web on the go, and to help the mobile web truly take off.

Japanese Mobile Operator NTT DoCoMo To Partner With Google

Japan’s biggest mobile phone operator, NTT DoCoMo will partner with Google to provide a search service and other applications from Google on its i-mode portal, according to Nikkei Business Daily, and reported by AFP.

NTT DoCoMo is said to have chosen to partner with Google because its customers are demanding more Internet functions on their cell phones.

Google is still far behind Yahoo in Japan’s search engine market. With this partnership with NTT DoCoMo, which has more than 50 million customers, Google will be able to gain some market share in the mobile search segment.

Google Releases Android SDK: Ready to Rule the Juicy Mobile Market

So as promised, Google has released Android SDK, which will allow developers to create all kind of applications to run on the first solid open platform for mobile devices.

Google has revealed Android’s main features and seriously, this proves that this OS will revolutionize the way people use and interact with their mobile phones. Some of the most exciting features are:

  • Application framework: you don’t like the pre-installed calendar application on your “Google” phone? No worries, replace it with any other application.

  • Integrated browser: based on the open source WebKit engine, used by Safari. The integrated browser allows you to view full web pages and also has great zoom capabilities, like the new Opera Mini browser.
  • Optimized graphics powered by a custom 2D graphics library; 3D graphics based on the OpenGL ES 1.0 specification: get ready to truly enjoy 3D games on your cell phones, and other kinds of rich animations. Check out this demo video on Youtube to see a demo of the Android version of Quake. Games will definitely look similar or better that what’s available on BREW phones.
  • Bluetooth, EDGE, 3G, and WiFi : with a phone powered by Android, you’ll have nothing to envy to the Iphone or other phones with built-in WiFi.
  • Rich development environment including a device emulator, tools for debugging, memory and performance profiling, and a plugin for the Eclipse IDE
  • Camera, GPS, compass, and accelerometer (hardware dependent)

Seriously, this is the best thing that ever happened in the mobile industry. Once developers will start providing applications, we will realize that these things will make our mobile user experience more enjoyable and with no-limit.

Google hasn’t decided to build a GooglePhone, instead, it provided an open source mobile OS to develop thousands of phones, capable or running an unlimited number of applications.

This will allow Google to dramatically increase their mobile market share and obtain tons personal data that they will of course use for better ad targeting.

Follow the discussion at Techmeme.