Posts Tagged ‘Mobile Phone’
Google Latitude
Google has announced yet another new feature called Google Latitude, which provides a means of tracking your friends, family members or employees using their mobile phone and a variation of Google Maps.
The geo-mapping technology has been available for several years, but like everything else that Google does, it has potential to bring this feature to the mass market.
Tech-savvy teens and other always-connected individuals may find the feature great for keeping track of where their friends and colleagues are by using the application on their mobile phone, but privacy and parents groups in the USA seem to be quite concerned over the privacy and security implications.
Google says the feature is meant to be used more in conjunction with social activities as opposed to big brother tracking your every move.
Last month, Search News reported on European Union pressure mounting against search engines amid concerns over Search Engine Privacy, and Union groups in Australia have previously been criticised over tracking employees’ every move, so it is uncertain if the technology may be used for the purpose of monitoring a mobile workforce.
The service is in it’s early stages at present, and it will be some, if at all before the product becomes mass market.
In the meantime, we can be sure Google will find some way of capitalising on the service, with potential of providing superior market research analytics and information about user behaviour and trends than perhaps any other social networking tool currently available on the web.
Agora Phone not ready for Australia
Australian importer Kogan, had been set to launch a new phone named Agora this week, however there have been some set-backs.
The Australian launch of the Agora Phone, equipped with the Google Android operating system, was reportedly delayedamid reports the Operating System designed by Google has bugs. In addition to the software quirks, it seems the phone’s screen may be blurry and not yet ready for the consumer market.
The Google Android operating system for mobile phones is currently functional on several commercial mobile phone handsets overseas, however it’s launch in Australia has been delayed, and despite Kogan taking pre-orders, there is no confirmation when the phone will hit the market in Australia, if at all.
Kogan needs to be quick, because many manufacturers such as Samsung are already increasing productivity to meet demands for the Android handset, and Australian Telco Optus confirmed yesterday that it’s phone network is Android capable, and ready to go.
It won’t be long now before we see tech geeks in Australia sporting the Android, but we’re still not certain the hype machine or demand is anywhere near that of the Apple Iphone, which still gets heads turning to this day.
Search Engine News is waiting to receive a handset to report on the search functionality and how well the phone is for interacting with the web on-the-go.
Google Creates Mobile Platform
Google is aiming to take a slice of the Iphone market by creating it’s own software for mobile phone software platforms.
Unlike the proprietary software built by Apple for it’s custom Iphone, the Google software is to be provided for free in effort to increase adoption by mobile phone vendors on various brands of phones, and thus improve market penetration and provide an alternative to the smart and sexy apple phone accessory.
This is clearly a sign of Google’s desire to occupy the mobile space which has seen dramatic increase in usage spurred on by 3G compatible handsets and other feature rich mobile phones such as the BlackBerry and Apple Iphone which have a plethora of mobile and internet applications.
This news comes less than 2 weeks after the search giant launched it’s Google Chrome Web Browser, which aims to take a slice of the browser market on desktop computers away from the dominating Microsoft and ever popular and free Firefox web browser.
It seems Google wants their presence known wherever people are browsing or searching the internet, and whereas in the past Google was associated with search, it seems Google is now aiming to be synonymous with the web in general.
It is interesting to watch as Google’s dominance of everything web-related unfolds.