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Relive the entire HTC One launch event from Barcelona Posted: 03 Mar 2012 10:04 AM PST HTC easily had the best press event I attended at Mobile World Congress. Peter Chou is slowing becoming a rock star and I was on the edge of my seat during the entire 45 minute presentation, even after being awake for 40 strait hours. Thankfully HTC has uploaded the entire performance to YouTube if you want to check it out this weekend. And for those that don’t have an hour to spare, there is a condensed 5-minute version below.

Rumor: Google’s $199 “Nexus tablet” to be made by ASUS, include quad-core Tegra 3 Posted: 03 Mar 2012 09:13 AM PST Recently there’s been rumblings that Google will release a 7-inch “Nexus tablet” in the first half of 2012, but many have doubted that Google would actually enter the hardware business. Several people have rightfully pointed out that Google traditionally partners with an OEM on these “Google Experience Devices”, just like they did with Motorola on the Xoom tablet. Read on for the latest rumor surrounding who might produce Google’s 7-inch tablet. The Rumor Google has partnered with ASUS to release a 7-inch tablet that will become a pure Google Experience Device. The tablet will retail for $199, include a quad-core Tegra 3 processor, and ship with stock Android 4.x Ice Cream Sandwich. The Sources This rumor comes from two different industry sources that I spoke with in person at Mobile World Congress. They have provided reliable information in the past and I find them to be trustworthy. As with most of these rumor reports, the sources wish to remain anonymous. One Android Insider's take on the rumor Consumers want cheap tablets and the $199 Kindle Fire has proven this. Amazon shipped an estimated 5 million units in Q4 of last year and it quickly became the best selling Android tablet. The Kindle Fire is a great product, but it lacks all of Google’s mobile services including the Android Market. Some would think that Google would be happy with Amazon’s success, but our sources say that Google sees Amazon as a threat in the tablet market. Amazon replaced Google’s ecosystem with their own, so Amazon earns all the long-tail profits from content and services, while Google gets nothing. There have already been multiple reports that Google would release a $199 tablet that features a 7-inch 1280×800 resolution display, enters production in April, and ships around June. The main details that have been absent include the OEM partner and the processor type. ASUS previously announced their $249 MeMo 370T tablet at CES, which included a quad-core Tegra 3 processor. The tablet won several best of show awards and our sources say that Google was so impressed with the device that they approached ASUS to see if they could reduce the bill of materials and reach that magical $199 price point. Barnes & Noble reduced the price of their Nook Tablet from $250 to $199, so why can’t others? Details about the ASUS MeMo 370T have been scarce, but we believe that product will be very similar to the Google Experience Device that gets released. It sounds likely that ASUS and Google might have reduced the internal storage to bring down the retail price to $199. Potential users would rely on the upcoming Google Drive to store their content online. Android chief Andy Rubin recently told Nilay Patel of The Verge that he wants to win the tablet race and Google was planning to do something about it. Rubin said, “2012 is going to be the year that we double down and make sure we’re winning in that space… we’re going to do a better job at making people understand what ecosystem they’re buying into.” Selling a full featured Android tablet with all of Google’s mobile services and a quad-core Tegra 3 processor for only $199 would certainly turn some heads. As crazy as it sounds, a possible 10-inch version might also be in the works with a target price point of $299. We are still unsure of the final product name, but Google Play is a possible candidate. A slew of recent domain names have been registered by MarkMonitor, which Google regularly uses to buy up URLs. Our sources were not able to confirm the target release date, but we speculate that it could be rolled out to Google IO attendees on June 27th. ASUS has a strong relationship with Google and I’ve been extremely impressed with the Transformer Prime, so I think this 7-inch Google Experience Device could sell very well. If Amazon shipped 5 million units of their $199 tablet in one quarter, then I predict that Google could move over 10 million units in the second-half of 2012. If all this information turns out to be true, how many of you would spend $199 on a 7-inch tablet with a pure Google experience?

Google’s Majel now called Assistant, slated for Q4 launch Posted: 03 Mar 2012 07:04 AM PST Last year we reported that Google was working on a virtual assistant for Android in response to Apple’s Siri. Later we learned that the project was codenamed Majel when one of our sources told us it was already in testing and a possible launch was imminent. For months no new details were leaked until this week when Alexia Tsotsis of TechCrunch reported that the service will now be called Assistant. According to an unnamed source, Tsotsis says the project is being led by the Android team along with the help of search engineer Amit Singhal. If you have been following our Majel coverage, that is the same Singhal that said, “My dream has always been to build the Star Trek computer.” Google’s own Matias Duarte previously discussed how their approach was different than Apple’s. Duarte said, “The metaphor I like to take is – if it's Star Wars, you have these robot personalities like C-3PO who runs around and he tries to do stuff for you, messes up and makes jokes, he's kind of a comic relief guy. Our approach is more like Star Trek, right, starship Enterprise; every piece of computing surface, everything is voice-aware. It's not that there's a personality, it doesn't have a name, it's just ‘Computer’.” Tsotsis’ source says Google’s Assistant has three parts which include: Get the world's knowledge into a format a computer can understand. Create a personalization layer — Experiments like Google +1 and Google+ are Google's way of gathering data on precisely how people interact with content. Build a mobile, voice-centered "Do engine" ('Assistant') that's less about returning search results and more about accomplishing real-life goals. Singhal described one of these “do engine” scenarios by saying, “I would be able to walk up to a computer, and say, 'Hey, what is the best time for me to sow seeds in India, given that monsoon was early this year?' And once we can answer that question (which we don't today), people will be looking for answers to even more complex questions. These are all genuine information needs. Genuine questions that if we – Google – can answer, our users will become more knowledgeable and they will be more satisfied in their quest for knowledge.” Clearly our prediction that Majel would launch last year was wrong, as this project has morphed from a natural language voice search into something much more ambitious. Tsotsis now reports that Google hopes to unveil Assistant by Q4 of 2012. There is still a possibility that Assistant could be rolled out in smaller pieces, but it now sounds like it will become a core feature of a major release of Android. What types of tasks would you hope Google Assistant could accomplish?