In attempt to get more people to their website BillShrink recently came out with this well-made digital flyer that compares the so-called “new generation” smartphones:

Courtesy BillShrink

Here’s that table in real-text form:

In the video below, you can see the Android OS—originally designed for mobile phones—boot up relatively quickly and take full advantage of the laptop’s built-in HSDPA. Yes, you heard that right, a laptop:

Featured at the recently concluded Computex, it’s obvious that Google needs to change at least one thing: you don’t tell a laptop owner to turn of his or her “phone”. Interesting though how the apparently unvarnished version of the OS automatically adapts to a laptop’s larger-than-mobile resolution. According to the video’s uploader, Asus was publicizing their own Android-based laptop, but reportedly chose not to showcase a demo unit.

Compal, the company behind the laptop, is known as the outsourced manufacturer for big brands like Dell and HP. It specializes in the production of notebooks and computer displays.

Since StatCounter started tracking Microsoft Bing’s online presence last June 1, the search engine has grabbed a market share of 5.56%—about 0.39% higher than Yahoo as of June 4.

Courtesy of StatCounter

No doubt, Microsoft’s marketing push has helped. I’m sure Bing has benefited from the relative success of Windows 7 to grab the attention of the more tech-minded, while more casual users probably try Bing out of curiosity.

It remains to be seen if Bing will maintain its momentum. Google after all retains its stranglehold on search at 87.66%. Yet it’s actually lost almost two percent market share over the June 1 - June 4 period (Yahoo lost “only” 0.14%, ending up at 5.17%). If StatCounter is an accurate tracker of US online search habits (the figures cited here only cover that country), and if Bing can manage to sustain its growth over the next few months, Microsoft will definitely have a winner here.

Yahoo, on the other hand, ends up losing face again. A search pioneer drops to third to a relative newcomer.

In summary, its creators bill Google Wave as what email would look like if it made its debut today. And through O’Reilly Radar do the makers publicize Wave and its upcoming launch. Instead of emails grouped into conversations, we now have Waves, individually described as a cloud-based conversation. Essentially, Wave is more about collaboration rather than communication.

It’s the initial description that pushes me to describe Wave as advanced IM, not email. The yet-to-be-released service seems to come across as an amorphous group chat, but with the ability to pin your replies or comments onto a specific portion of the Wave, just like pointing out a specific picture within an album and starting a discussion over it. Thus Wave communiques seem to take a more multi-point approach, again much like many people expressing themselves within a group chat, rather than the one-to-one or one-to-many reality of current email.

Thoughts? Question? Violent reactions? Leave a comment below. You can sign up your email for Google Wave’s launch notification on wave.google.com.

This might be overkill for some, but for those who just can’t memorize Gmail’s keyboard shortcuts, the folks over at the Googleplex have quite a deal for you. Just send a self-addressed envelope to Send me some Gmail stickers already, P.O. Box 391420, Mountain View, CA 94039-1420. You’ll receive some vinyl overlays for your keys, as well as some artsy-fartsy Gmail-themed stickies.

According to Google’s blog, “The adhesive is a bit more removable than standard stickiness, so you can take them off once you’ve trained your fingers.” Google will ship this set even to outside the US—check out the full post for more details.

(Image via Google)

Apparently, scoring an interview with Google—and making all the way to final stages of the evaluation process—is enough to get some attention online. That’s what happened to erstwhile blogger Peteris Krumins, who summed up the challenging telephone and in-person questions and relatively posh life as a Google applicant like with “It was also nice that Google paid for my trip, hotel, cab and food. I had zero expenses!” and:

Overall the Google interviews were pure fun for me. The interview questions were technical but not very challenging or difficult.

Thanks for the opportunity Google!

Looks like Mr. Krumins didn’t get the job, being told that he needed more experience for such a “mission-critical” position. But his straightforward and clear narration is very worth the read for any Google fans out there, as it provides a sneak peek into a small facet of the company’s operations. At the very least, we know Google’s willing to pay for the Latvian’s round-trip, lodging and food while he was on-site! Also, the comments, divided between haters, encouragers, and neutral opiners, is also worth some attention

(image from catonmat.net)

Imagine typing out a text message, tapping in “reboot”, and wondering why your phone actually rebooted. That’s a quirk caused by a hilarious—but serious—bug affecting G1’s running on the RC29 firmware revision. I totally understand why Ed Burnette called this the “Worst. Bug. Ever.” over at zdnet.com. A bug that ultimately gives a casual user complete access to your smartphone if you happen to leave it unattended is a very bad thing indeed.

At the same time however, Ed’s discussion of the issue also shows the advantages of open source, and why being able to share info quickly over the internet is a great thing:

Because Android is open source, the problem was quickly tracked down by users to a couple lines in the system file init.rc. My guess is that this was accidentally left in during device debugging. Thankfully the fix is trivial; you can probably even make it yourself if you’re so inclined (just comment out the offending lines described in the reports above and reboot).

Here’s a workaround I just discovered: Open the keyboard and type these 5 keystrokes: -c-a-t-. That will cause the phantom shell to not listen to commands any more, at least until the next reboot. [italics mine]

Let’s go over that again, shall we? First, Ed highlights the open-source nature of Google’s Android OS, facilitating the discovery of the problem’s source by users. At the same time, through his own blog, Ed quickly shares his own solution to the problem. Now, what more could you ask for?

By the way, a fix for this is part of RC30. So any (legit) G1 users out there, feel free to update as soon as possible.

Motorola’s newer models have really not caught any significant attention, which is probably why agents of the company decided to spam this blog. Looks like the manufacturer’s higher-ups have started to pin hopes on the Android OS, seeking to ride on a potentially “strong developer community and application ecosystem”.

That’s just part of a three-fold plan:

• Android will be the major platform for Motorola phones. Goodbye Symbian!
• The P2K platform will power low-end models.
• Production of Windows Mobile devices may be outsourced.

Nokia should watch what happens closely. If Motorola’s Android gambit proves successful, it may push other developers relying on Symbian (LG for one) to start taking the mobile platform more seriously. The Unwired View speculates on further ramifications.

Seriously, can you call this anything else but ugly?

The G1 Phone is $179, and will be out on October 22. Good thing the price is low, and let’s hope that it doesn’t come with some two-year strings attached. (techcrunch.com)

Ok, first things first: personal tests have shown that Google’s new browser is faster than what’s currently available. Not bad for an app currently in early beta stage. But Douglas did have something to say about that:

Keep in mind that every new browser or version of browser always has a speed advantage… until they plug up the security holes. We see this in every browser comparison on a new release.

Makes sense. Let’s see what happens as Google fixes everything up—if they ever take Chrome off “Beta” status. Anyways, what do you think of the new browser? So far so good, but some bugs crop up from time to time. We still have to use Firefox to get anything in Facebook for instance.