Motorola Guns for Lower-End Market

Author Archives: Richard Adhikari

Motorola Guns for Lower-End Market

Motorola on Wednesday announced the Moto G, an unlocked, no-contract smartphone with an unlockable bootloader running Android 4.3, Jelly Bean, to be widely available next year. An 8-GB version will be offered for $179 and a 16-GB version for $199. The rollout began this week in Brazil and parts of Europe, and the device will come to the United States in 2014.



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Galileo Gives Gadget Makers Great Power

Intel on Thursday announced Galileo, a microcontroller development board made jointly with open source hardware company Arduino for the education and maker markets. Based on Intel’s recently announced Quark system on a chip, the Galileo board will be available by the end of November for less than $60, said Intel spokesperson Kari Aakre.



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No Gold Star for Galaxy Gear

The first reviews of the Samsung Galaxy Gear smartwatch have hit the Internet and they are generally tepid. However, “I’m not sure how anyone can give it a rating of anything until it is put through its paces over time by consumers actually using it in real-life situations,” said Larry Chiagouris, a professor at Pace University. Many reviewers expressed concern over the Gear’s $300 price tag.



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Valve Beta Boosts Linux Gaming Full Steam Ahead

Valve Software will later this year beta test 300 hardware boxes running its Linux-based SteamOS, a standalone operating system for entertainment appliances in consumers’ living rooms. The prototype box for the Steam platform, which is optimized for gaming in the living room, is completely upgradable and open. Beta testers are encouraged to hack or mod the box.



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Google Adds Remote Locking for MIA Androids

Google on Tuesday rolled out a feature for its recently launched Android Device Manager that lets users lock down a stolen Android device from anywhere, via the Web. “This is something that should be built into the OS and the platform because it’s an inherent security feature,” said tech analyst Rob Enderle. Google is late to the game in rolling out its remote lock capability.



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$7M Funding Means All Systems Go for Cyanogen

The Cyanogen free and open source Android firmware project on Wednesday announced that it had received $7 million in a Series A round of funding in April. The investment came from Benchmark Capital and Redpoint Ventures. “What will change is our capabilities, our speed, and our size,” wrote Cyanogen founder Steve Kondik. “I am not going to let anyone stagnate.”



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Samsung Enlists Lookout for Android Enterprise Security

Samsung will bundle a forthcoming business suite from Lookout into its flailing Knox enterprise security solution for the Android platform. Knox, an end-to-end solution that provides security from the hardware all the way through to the application level, is Samsung’s approach to the security threats posed by BYOD. The announcement is drawing mixed responses from security professionals.



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Android Team’s Munchies Lead to Genius KitKat Tie-In

The Internet is abuzz with news that Google has teamed up with food giant Nestle to name the next version of Android after the latter’s famous chocolate bar — KitKat — rather than continue its tradition of nonbranded nomenclature with the name “Key Lime Pie.” KitKat will be Android 4.4 and not Android 5 as some expected. Both the Android and KitKat brands have worldwide recognition.



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Failed Funding Effort Blunts Canonical’s Ubuntu Edge

Canonical raised more than $12 million over 30 frantic days of crowdfunding its ambitious Ubuntu Edge superphone project, but it was still short some $20 million by the time the effort closed on Wednesday. The company’s target was $32 million. “We raised $12,809,906, making the Edge the world’s biggest ever fixed crowdfunding campaign,” wrote Canonical founder Mark Shuttleworth.



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Open Source Meets Textbook Publishing – Much Cash Freed Up

There’s no denying the growing impact of open source software in today’s business landscape, but for those who want additional proof of the open approach’s viability, there’s OpenStax College. Since 2012, the initiative has been producing peer-reviewed open source textbooks under a Creative Commons license. This year, the organization expects to save some 40,000 students about $3.7 million.



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