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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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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Groklaw Shutters Doors Over Email Privacy Concerns

The continuing flood of news about the NSA’s surveillance of Americans’ communications, which has already forced secure email providers Lavabit and Silent Circle to shut down, has now claimed yet another victim. Specifically, award-winning tech legal news site Groklaw, which served the free and open source software community, on Tuesday announced that it is closing because of email security concerns.



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Linux Burrows Deeper Into the Enterprise

Server-side Linux has been pushing into the enterprise for some years now, and 42 percent of respondents to a survey conducted on behalf of Linux vendor SUSE said it was either their primary server OS or one of their top server platforms. Perhaps more importantly, Linux is extending its reach beyond its traditional areas of supercomputing, Web servers, Internet hosting and application development.



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Elon Musk Blazes Hyperloop Trail

Uber-industrialist Elon Musk on Monday released the alpha plans for his proposed Hyperloop high-speed travel system between San Francisco and Los Angeles. The Hyperloop will consist of streamlined capsules riding like hovercraft on an air cushion in a steel tube with solar arrays on its roof to provide power to the system. The tube will be supported every 100 feet by pylons.



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