| Growing up Geek: Nicole Scott Feb 24th 2012, 20:00  Welcome to Growing Up Geek, an ongoing feature where we take a look back at our youth and tell stories of growing up to be the nerds that we are. Today, we have a special guest: tech journalist and co-founder of Netbooknews, Nicole Scott. Snow Day set it all off. Seventh grade, and already I knew. In Canada everything shuts down when the snow is deep, especially school. But I was determined to go. They had a better computer than we had at home. I was going to get my allotted half hour, no matter what. I made my poor parents drive me to school anyway, and after all that, we were promptly sent away. And so my disastrous love affair with technology began. Continue reading Growing up Geek: Nicole Scott Growing up Geek: Nicole Scott originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 24 Feb 2012 16:00:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds. Permalink | | Email this | Comments | | Ubuntu for Android: more details and prototype hands-on (video) Feb 24th 2012, 19:03 Canonical's announcement of Ubuntu for Android kicked up quite a stir, but it also left us with a few unknowns. The idea is that your phone becomes a mobile PC, switching from Android into full desktop Ubuntu mode when you dock it to a bigger display, keyboard and mouse. But just how well does it perform? When is it coming? How is it coming? And will tinkerers be able to install it for themselves? Canonical let us into its London office today to try out the software and pepper one of its engineers with questions. First, the good news: Ubuntu for Android is everything it's been claimed to be. It's a functional desktop OS that sits alongside Android, shares the same kernel and has full read / write access to everything on your phone (the connectivity hardware itself plus contacts, emails, videos, apps and pretty much everything else.). It's also ready for ARM-compatible Ubuntu apps, potentially expanding the range of things your phone can do. The bad news? It needs to be faster -- a lot faster. The prototype we saw was running on a TI OMAP 4430-powered Motorola Atrix 2 that had primarily been chosen for its ready-made docking accessory. The software hadn't been customized for that handset and neither Motorola nor TI have so far been involved in the project. Despite this, some tasks ran surprisingly well, like watching a video or adjusting a photo. However, surfing on the Chromium desktop browser suffered too much hanging and it was also clear that multi-tasking would be a serious burden. According to Canonical, better performance will come when manufacturers tailor the software to their newest handsets and offer it pre-installed. The company is doing everything it can to make that happen -- meeting with big players at MWC next week and trying to persuade them that it's not too late to offer Ubuntu on models scheduled for launch this year. We asked if Canonical would make the OS available to us ordinary folk sooner than that, so we can play with it and give our feedback, but that just isn't part of the company's game plan right now -- everything hinges on manufacturers seeing the 'differentiation' value and climbing aboard. To tide you over in the meantime, click past the break for a hands-on video. Continue reading Ubuntu for Android: more details and prototype hands-on (video) Ubuntu for Android: more details and prototype hands-on (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 24 Feb 2012 15:03:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds. Permalink | | Email this | Comments | | Chrome for Android updates: recognizes app links, boosts speed Feb 24th 2012, 18:37 Google slipped a bit of an upgrade into the Android Market today. The mobile version of Chrome received a seemingly minor version bump and, much to our chagrin, left no changelog behind for us to peruse. Most of the tweaks are under the hood and, in our unscientific testing, pages appeared to load much faster and the interface was more responsive. Our immediate impressions were backed up by benchmarks -- the updated version of Chrome scored a 1,846.8 on SunSpider. The most welcome addition, though, was the ability to recognize links associated with applications. For example, the initial release never offered us the opportunity to open search results in the Google Maps app, it went straight to the mobile site. That quirk hasn't been fixed completely, as YouTube vids still stream inline with no immediately apparent option to launch them in the app. Still, it's nice to see Google improving integration with the OS and working towards making Chrome an acceptable replacement for the default browser. Update: Some of you out there are reporting that the upgrade has broken the browser for rooted devices and custom ROMs. While that limitation doesn't appear to be affecting our Nexus, we've gotten enough response to believe this is a legitimate issue. So, update at your own peril. Chrome for Android updates: recognizes app links, boosts speed originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 24 Feb 2012 14:37:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds. Permalink | | Email this | Comments | | Samsung partners with FeliCa for Japanese NFC solutions, unveils 2012 Olympics' mobile payment app with Visa Feb 24th 2012, 18:24 Across the globe today, Samsung is bringing a number of pushes to broaden NFC adoption. On the island of Japan, the company's sealed a partnership with FeliCa Networks to implement its NFC-Secure Application Module chips in its mobile devices. Notably, the solution is ensures compatibility between Japan's long established Osaifu-Keitai contactless payment services and the newer breed of NFC Types A and B which normally don't play nice together. The chips are touted has having "advanced security" to keep your funds in check, and are expect to hit "commercial deployment" set for 2013. Flying over to London, Samsung and Visa have unveiled the official NFC payment app for the 2012 Olympics, in their continued preparation for the event. Despite the unveil, the application (based on Visa's PayWave) will officially debut for display at Mobile World Congress next week. This comes nearly ten months after the duo announced their plans to further establish NFC-based payment options for London and the event itself. Hit up the two press releases after the break for the full details on the announcements. Continue reading Samsung partners with FeliCa for Japanese NFC solutions, unveils 2012 Olympics' mobile payment app with Visa Samsung partners with FeliCa for Japanese NFC solutions, unveils 2012 Olympics' mobile payment app with Visa originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 24 Feb 2012 14:24:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds. Permalink | | Email this | Comments | |
